Marius

day 17 So I actually spend most of the last two days watching YouTube; even some porn. I just hate it that I can't sleep at night and the club does the rest. My days seem boring and unfulfilling. I don't know how to escape this. I didn't watch any gaming content besides one report related to the Arcane series. So that's something. It really feels though as if I would be back in my old days where I wasted the night hours not sleeping but watching something on my laptop or tablet. I don't feel rested enough to accomplish anything in the morning. Also my stomach is actually really good atm but that means that I might not be able to eat gluten anymore in my lifetime. Uni seems to make me really unhappy atm as I don't see myself learning everything on the shallow level that university life might provide me. Gotta have to invest so much time that just feels like burning out real quick. Also there are so many tasks that I should do atm where I can't motivate myself for or am afraid of. The daily habits I laid out for myself seem to be so much weaker than my usual desires to make me feel a little less tired and shit. That directly leads me to instant gratification again. I know that deep problems I see in my life can not be overcome this way and I know about how to behave if I want to be successful in my life. Defining success is easier said than done but after all I believe it means to achieve spending your life time with the things you truly care about. Chasing contentment over happiness is not easy. Especially when your environment points you to a different lifestyle. All those helpful thoughts fall short in the moments where temptation is bigger. YouTube is such a big trigger for me that I should just completely refrain from it. Gotta set up blockers again and see how they work for me. I feel I completely lost track after succeeding in August. Might have had a few bad decisions that led me where I am now. Ill work on MySQL/PHP again now. Wish me luck.

day 15 I started the day with my usual "getting out of bed"-routine. Let's analyse that. Cue -> Routine -> Reward -> Craving -> Loop. The cue is obviously me not sleeping enough and being really tired or just unrested in the morning. The routine is that I stand up too late and stay in bed for another 1-2h. The reward I believe is that I have the imagination that I won't be late if I just stay in bed a bit more and hope that I will be more useful at uni later on. The reward pays off in the form that my eyes don't hurt that much when I decide to get out of bed in the end. I still don't think that I earn enough rest during the time I stay longer in bed. I need to find a reward that gets me going to the toilet and is stronger than my feeling of tiredness I have in my bed. Might meal-prep my breakfast next few days. See if that works. Also set my alarm to the waking-up as well as sleeping-time. So double-check. Gotta get that fixed night time. The club will blare again tonight, so I took a melatonin pill already and going to lay down with earplugs tonight. Back to my day: Arrived on time for the second lecture and attended all following classes, where one turned out to be even better than I thought before. After that I took the train home again and learned some spanish. Now I feel a bit tired, will read shortly in a book about the connection between diet and health and try to sleep. Tomorrow should be planned to be honest. Gotta do that right now. Then read and sleep.

day 14 I deteriorated over the last few days. My sleep became really really bad, so I think I just have to keep my routines in place. I adjusted my screen-off time to one hour prior to my sleep schedule as I need the time in the evening to even get a bit of learning or building of my other interests done. My days at uni are sometimes really long and commuting everyday feels a bit tedious I got to say. My new noise-cancellation headphones help though, so train rides become more productive and less stressful. I feel good about today. Managed to get to an echo course almost on time and keeping my house relatively clean. I miss having a gf/FWB though. Sleeping alone feels lonely but I might also just be too worked up when I go to bed. Also have to cancel on fapping for a while. This got out of hand 😉 So things are ok and not ok at the same time. gotta have to focus on control with my screen time, especially at night. I already fall back into my old misconception that watching some series/movie/porn will help me to calm down in the night. The sreen is flashy though and the light destroys my melatonin production. It's just really helpful to escape negative thoughts. I'm really bad at dealing with my problems in real life it seems. This inability will only increase though if I can't shut down successfully at night. I already know that it will be really hard to control my urge to just go on the tablet and watch some more series tonight. Just thinking of it is already so exciting that I feel more awake already. Im really bad dealing with my emotions and cravings atm. I didnt watch or played any League or other games, but went on YouTube again. I might need some intermediate dopamine release show/movie/documentary, so my cravings don't act that strongly but I still find some relief. I don't know what can help me. I feel a bit lost here tbh.

day 10 Yeah well, as I already told you: I didn't sleep well. Then I wrote down those lines and then had the idea to get on my laptop to chill out for a bit before I leave the house.... If there is a single bad habit that accompanies my life, it is me having the idea of relaxing with technology for a certain amount of time and then failing to restrict that time to a healthy amount. It's sickening. I have been watching series and YouTube since I last wrote. I watched series and YouTube. feels like a relapse though I didnt play or watched Twitch. Arcane is now finished with the first season and the show is really good I gotta say. Still I canceled Netflix and Amazon Prime now, so I won't be tempted in the future. It feels like I have given up on myself and my ability to be successful. I feel worthless, dumb and hateful. I can't really be proud of myself anymore. Feels like I have given up to become someone else. My dreams seem to be further away than ever before. It feels terrible to have failed that many times. If suicide is no option, change is imperative. 2200 I will switch of the lights and try to sleep. To be successful with that I have to spend the next three hours doing what makes me to be truly proud of myself and the way I use my time, so that I will be happy to sleep on time. Change takes time and I'm really impatient. Gotta work on that. Let's treat today as a partial relapse. I will add the number in brackets behind the day.

day 9 So I could only wake up late as I had watched Better Call Soul the night for hours as the club was loud again. A friend of mine came over and we learnt a bit medicine, cooked and watched Men who stare at goats together. Was great seeing him again. I went to a place that was on offer as an apartment but maybe I was late to the party as the landlord didnt reply to my mail of interest.didnt really accomplish much this day but felt great meeting a friend again. I spent the night after he left again with Better Call Saul as the bass was playing hard again from the club. I really have to move out. It's now 12.30pm and I jus crawled out of my bed. I'm still tired and feel week, have a headache and little energy. these nights are wearing me off. I know that I won't accomplish anything in life if I don't get this problem in order. Will start with evening routine again, today. Gotta go to the library now, wish me luck. 🙂

day 8 So I couldnt sleep last night, so I was more or less awake when my alarm clock rang. I stayed in bed for another hour and made myself some breakfast which I didnt do for quite some days now which was great. i then hurried to get the right train and made again. After all I arrived 10minutes late for the first lecture which was ok as they only talked about things prior to today's subject. I could pay attention for the rest of the day but had one overwhelming antibiotics seminar later on. I really have to start learning thoroughly right now if I don't want to get under the wheels. I ate together with a friend and we went to the library afterwards where we stayed for another hour. Then i went back to Mannheim and got directly to the gym. had little diarrhoe again which might be caused by the breakfast. Have to tweak things on that. After the gym I picked up a book about sleep science to maybe help me figure out how to fix my sleep problems. I then paid for the lifetime access to babbel as I think that app might actually help me to learn spanish and the other world languages. Then I had the idea to check up on League's anime series Arcane to see if the new episodes are out already which of course may be a bad idea but I like the show and there are only three left and afterwards I won't consume any League content anymore. I listened to the OST of the show and picked some favourites for my Liked Songs and remembered one theme I listened to once from Vedrim that I listened to then on YouTube which was fine I suppose as I only listened to the music but didnt watch any game content beside that. So, now I feel like actually taking a break from my duties for the evening and enjoy watching a series until it's time to initiate my evening routine which would give me around one hour that should suffice for one episode. Afterwards I will shut everything off, learn spanish for a quarter hour and fill the rest of the time until I switch off the lights with reading, journaling and meditation. Have a good night.

day 7 - one week omfg Let's talk Wednesday: So I couldnt sleep at night and turned again and again, so I was so cloudy in my head in the morning that I decided to stay there until I had managed to even get a little bit of sleep. That way I got late to the first obligatory seminar this week and only managed to get there by taking a cab as I couldnt manage to get to the train on time. had to pay 40€ to make it there. So this was pretty devastating and after I drove back to my home it really didnt do much this afternoon before I had a seminar about electrophysiological examinations which was interesting but also a bit overwhelming. After that was finished I sat down and read my book to the finish and lay down in bed. Over all not that effective of a day. My memory sucks, I am slow and still really tired throughout the day. would like to turn off the lights, ready for my night at 10pm today but I'm not sure of what to do with the time until then. I crave to just watch some Twitch and forget about everything for a while. I think it is actually better for me to sum up the day I'm writing this down so I will talk about today now: woke up late again and so I was late also for my train to Heidelberg (HD); decided to iron my white coat, watched recorded lectures during that and got on a later train to HD. Our group of three had bedside teaching there, so we had to look for the IMC first and then I did the interview with the patient which was fine I guess even though I forgot two things that I should have remembered asking. Nevertheless it was a really relaxed bedside teaching and afterwards we went to the mensa where I met another friend, and she ate with us, too. After that we joked a bit and said goodbye before I went to the library where I sat down and tried to read in a book I'm trying to finish for a couple of weeks now. Didnt really get that far but picked up some momentum moving forward. Everything seems like a dread atm. dunno. Around 7pm I got home again, got some groceries and cooked pasta with tomato sauce. A friend also agreed to meet on Saturday to revise our current studies and cook/watch a movie together: our usual meetings 😄 When I was finished with cooking I sat down and wrote those lines here. Don't really know what to do now. It really feels like the right time to just watch a series rn. Just something to get my head away from here and focus on something fictious. Feels like I'd like to escape from reality rn. I guess it's mainly that I'm not following through with my set goals but fall behind schedule every day. Gotta just push through I think. Will continue with the book rn until I fall asleep reading. It feels like my time is moving too fast. can't keep up with the pace. gotta have to figure this out. I'm grateful for... ... me not playing games, watching YouTube or series for a couple of days now ... not having talked to a new foe of mine even though we used to share some respect for each other and worked closely together ... feeling welcome in that group of people i met during the last few weeks ... my pasta and how it came out. ... the coffee I cooked yesterday that was really good. ... having enough restraint to stay away from series in this moment. ... the chance to meet with a friend in a few days again ... the possibility to fall asleep on time today ... the mild impression that my sleep is wonky but still improves in baby steps ... the possibility to eat some ice cream in a few minutes. 😄

Have you been to a doctor with those problems?

Why don't you try to fill the time in a schedule like explained in respawn? This has not to be something exhasuting or very mentally demanding. If you are exhausted from your day physically and mentally do some of the relaxing hobbies Cam mentioned. Or find something yourself. From my experience with many times of relapse I can say that mindlessly browsing the internet has always led me down a dark path in the past. just schedule your evenings with something that you will be proud of in the future and still is not too demanding for you. The question you have to ask yourself. What is it that makes you go into that surfing mode? What do you hope to find? Is it just you seeking the next adrenaline/dopamine rush? Limiting that kind of activity might help you to build a clear mind.

day 6 talking about Tuesday: I woke up too late so I arrived ten minutes too late for my first seminar that day. Nevertheless it was okayish as I could contribute and we learned some interesting stuff. I got late to the next seminar on campus as I hadnt eaten anything yet and wanted to buy a little bread roll. The next seminar was really overwhelming as we rushed through all major cancers of the intestinal track and how to diagnose/treat them 😄 Afterwards I ate with a new friend of mine who is from Slovenia and we joined the next lecture in the afternoon. After that I had a little seminar about haematology microscopy that was interesting and still sucked as I expected us to be able to practice and what we did in the end was to only listen to his explanations. I went to the library afterwards where I stayed at one computer to work a bit on my learning though I didnt really succeed in accomplishing much. Then I went to the last lecture of the day which was interesting again although not as much as the one from last week. Afterwards I took the train home and somehow can't really remember what happened next. All I know is that I didnt sleep much that night and was really sluggish this morning. It's 11.30pm here atm so I will go off for now. See you tomorrow.

Thanks, one idea I have may be to write down your emotions and thoughts when you are in a public place eating. So rather than falling into routine mode just let the negative emotions fade after you have endured a minute with them. Then write down what you think. Just journaling in general. That might help you to understand what pressures you so much during these events. Try to understand yourself and why you feel so uncomfortable. I don't know if what I say helps but I think you have to redefine your self-perception. When you were bullied you may have actually started believing some of the negative attributions others made about you. Cut through the lies and look at yourself as a person that is likeable and possesses many positive characteristics. Write them down. Build self-esteem. Working out helps, too. Collect all those little successes during this rehab. Build momentum, so you have enough courage to engage with new people with the risk of failure. It is low though. You have to keep that in mind. If you are in a situation where there are many people that like to get to know each other you will most surely meet at least one person that you would like to become friends with and that supports you. So to sum it up: build a support network of people you would like to be friends with. Avoid those that hurt you. They are not worth your time.

day 5 Yesterday was my first day at uni after I started again with the rehab. The morning was very successfull I have to say. I was still very tired as my sleeps sucks but I managed to partially stick to my morning routine which I wasn't capable for weeks. After that I took a train that allowed me to actually get to my lecture early which was great since I usually are late as my mornings are really filled with tiredness/dread and really unorganized. I will have to become happy to get out of bed and start the day which I am not atm. Uni and my group mates seem to get through life so much smoother that I feel really left out at times. I know that the reason for that is just my missing motivation to sit down and learn which is crucial as medical student 😛 This motivation might come again if I carefully watch my dopamine release in every action/decision during the day so to decrease/eradicate the spikes. Anyways the day at uni was filled with some seminars and lectures and after they were over I quickly commuted back to Mannheim so I could go to the gym which worked. I have to go back to training without weights though as I feel training with machines is only helpful if you have exhausted a specific muscle group and would like to continue training on that day with exercises where you can isolate that specific muscle. Without weights builds better overall strength, also works deep lying muscle parts and releases more testosterone which gives more self-confidence. So yes even if those exercises will have to start with baby steps to make them work at my training level they are still better. Any training is good after all though so I booked another slot tomorrow. After training I went home again to have another online lecture about ECG analysis which was quite boring 😄 and not really helpful but I guess it's ok. Won't attend next week as the slides will be uploaded and scrolling through them takes me 5min instead of 45min. After the seminar I ate a bit and decided to continue reading one text book for uni but was so sleepy that I just relaxed on the couch. Couldnt sleep the night though so I will turn of this laptop rn to avoid blue lightning. Will talk to you about today tomorrow. This will keep going like this btw. Bye.

Do you like your job?

Do you know Andrew Kirby on YouTube? Also I recommend: Stay Focused for Android DF Youtube Rescue Time To your question: waking up early is great, it's important to win the day after waking up early so what you do in the first hour after your alarm clock rang is really really important to make your day a success. Try to always pick something you are not overwhelmed with but still drives you in the right direction. On this note providing your mind with positive results from your planned days is crucial to create a positive feedback loop so you want to do these tasks more often. So in general: Try to do the hardest thing you are absolutely sure you won't fail with. Do you work/go to school/uni? Pray to god: Ok, I have become more religious in the last years even though I have to say that it mostly feels like a symptom of my sleep deprived brain so can't really give you a good opinion whether I think it's good or bad. Just one idea: The premise of a god entails most likely that this being has some power over you and your actions. Thinking that way might hinder your perceived self-efficacy. So I don't know if that helps during this rehab. Workout is always great whether you are just depressed or addicted. helps with girls/boys as well 😉 I don't understand why you would like to always switch to a new hobby. Honestly sticking with one might be helpful to train your brain with building up perseverance and discipline. Coding/language learning is really helpful in private and business, so yes do that. Writing and song writing sound really creative.

Did everything work like planned?

It's all good, just saying that the problem with all diets and other time bound tasks is that they will ultimately come to an end. For you these three months are the time frame. I would recommend you to go one step further and not look at the news of the other game as well as it really sounds like as if doing so makes it only harder for you. Just don't do it and sit down and wait, realizing your cravings until they evaporate into nothing. They are only emotions after all.

day 4 So I spent yesterday for the most part at the library. I couldnt really focus on the task at hand and listening to music might have contributed to that. The idea was to keep working on my MySQL/PHP skills so I might create an addon for Anki that I think is missing. I really didn't get much far. I ordered in-ear headphones (at least a planned investment for quite some time) and bought two books that I hope might help me on the route to success. Afterwards I cleaned my room which was really dirty. Afterwards my bed time had already arrived, so I quickly ate my meal and lay on the bed. I stayed in an awkward position with the light turned on for quite some while which was weird and then couldnt fall asleep anymore after I stood up to go to the toilet. I watched a few videos from Evan Duffy though I might have compromised my ability to sleep even more that way. I will try to stay away from YouTube completely.

Watching TV series always led me down a dark route as I binged them heavily. For me it came from a false understanding to live your day as it was your last day which just led me to binge into hedonism. The logical falsehood here being that your life to end today is really unlikely and consequences of the far future should matter to you as you will likely experience them.

I think if you need to escape fear, rationality is key. Assess the likelihood of an adverse outcome and the exact consequence that event would have on your life. Either find data on that or create the data yourself through immersion in real life situations. Then you also have to accept that there are things out of your control and focus on the things you have control over. Becoming emotionally attached to uncontrollable events doesn't help your mental state, and is also not wise. I believe there are still many decisions you make over the course of the day where you have 100% control over your reactions. Maybe stoicism might help. Try Andrew Kirby's videos on the matter.

can relate, paradoxically, I stopped my passion for reading when I entered university 😄 Being away from home and having developed a habit to spend most of my time alone in my room watching movies/series with few to none friends seemed to had gotten the worst out of me. I never really recovered from those habit building. I lost discipline which back then made me who I was and the success I received in life. Nevertheless the path to success and the different ways to approach where much clearer and simpler than adult life: You learn for your subjects in school and succeed as you never skipped any class and repetition ensured that you never got lost. With uni it seems that I always find myself in a rush and the question I ask about certain topics seem to be of no interest to groupmates or teachers. Also I lost so much knowledge and memory over the time. This is quite likely due to my poor sleep. I really ruined many parts of my life with this way of living. I think those realizations are powerful and building upon them is a path to success.

day 3 I was a the gym yesterday. A bit too late as I forgot my towel and had to buy a new one as I thought it would be faster. After all I bought three new ones as they seemed to be cheap. I trained for around 1 hour even though not as effective as I used to. i think that going onward I will just stick to those things that really worked for me. That means for training Tao Physique's beginner routine should suffice. The plan was to learn for uni afterwards but I mostly spend it searching through anatomy Anki packages which is fine I guess. The next three hours I used for watching Arcane which is League of Legends's new series on Netflix though. I don't know. I really enjoy the show, nevertheless it seems to keep me in close contact to the game which is terrible. I looked up some reddit posts and watched some YouTube so not that successfull on that front. I couldn't sleep as the club was so loud again. Wrote to several renting offers for me to move out from that house. Hopefully I can resolve this situation soon. Not sure about my friends atm. I lost contact to many of them and it seems that no one is really interested in talking to me as well. Guess I just have to find new ones. First I'll focus on my important tasks for the near future though. I'm afraid that I can't do that because everything feels like a drag. I'm constantly listening to music which just makes things bearable. Have to loose that habit as well I guess. Music is great to make you feel better but it also helps to not focus on the present and escape into your dream worlds. So checking in becomes even harder the more you dive into music. Boredom will resolve itself once you stop escaping it. My dopamine demand is way to high for productive time use atm. My concentration is non-existent. I know which switches to push to change that but I'm afraid of depression as a withdrawal sign. I don't have a good supportive social environment. I really have to figure this out. It feels like I'm wasting one day at a time. This mostly is caused by not winning the day. This in turn is caused by not sleeping well. This in turn is based on my bad sleeping habits/this freaking club downstairs. Solution for the club problem is just moving out. Working on that now. Bad sleeping habits myself are mostly taking my screen time to late into the day. So I should stick to my 8pm resolution for sleeping time at 10pm. Also maybe calming podcasts/books should be good. Furthermore I will use the last half hour before sleeping for journaling and meditation. This is rough and it often happens that I think about my social life when I'm worked up and can't sleep, so discussing those thoughts in a journal might help. I will start with that today. Currently at the library to learn how to code MySQL as I have a good idea how to revise my existing/missing knowledge of my medical studies. I feel like I'm not progressing fast enough though with the book so I'm constantly anxious if I use my time correctly or not. I will talk to you tomorrow.

Proud of you. You're doing well. Do not get stressed out too much with the way you assign your time, think of breaks. Better to start on your assignments right now though. Otherwise the stress might pile up an lead you down a dark path.

Do you have any life goals? Why not work towards them if the majority of your time is free for you to use?

Why do you watch the news about your games?

day 2 So yesterday was spent without Twitch and League of Legends though I also excluded uni stress in my life. I mostly read through Respawn again, cooked, ate, watched a series about ancient greek myths although I will stop that now because mythology seems to be at least half-way fictitious. Checking in is about connecting to reality, not fiction though. It seems better to watch documentary and only when you are in a relaxing state and have exhausted other options. Screen time reduction is still a key. So after 11pm the club that as of late sits in my house started blasting on full volume so I lay in bed and couldnt sleep. That's why I decided to cancel my renting contract, so it's on a three month expiry now and searched for new options. I also recognized some key features my rehab has to entail: - I reduce screen time to a minimum and only use it if really necessary - I cut out porn, Twitch, news and if possible YouTube. I downloaded Andrew Kirby's videos a while ago and will watch them offline; one a day. So I adjusted my rules now and will go onward like that. Will talk to you later again