Caged Bliss

Thanks for the warm welcome I am trying to make the most out of the journal feature, is nice to get ideas down. I have stated reading yours Alex (at page6), and a few others. I am a bit wary of spending too much time here reading forum posts though. I am going to try maintain posting my own journal, and then other reading/posting I will consider a leisure activity to be done when I have free time. Does this sound like a good strategy?

Entry 3 Today has been decent, not really super productive, just going over my presentation I will be giving this week in my tutorial. Now I am not that good at conversing 1 to 1 but I like teaching people things so as long as I know the content I want to speak about, it should be a good time. I managed to get an hour of court time in to shoot hoops before I had to leave due to scheduled matches being held there. I wrote down when the gym is free and am going to try get along there in the mornings 3+ times a week. I'll be signing up for the social basketball grade next semester so want to try build some confidence in my skills before then. I'm joining social grade because I want it to be more about meeting some new people (who share an inclination in playing basketball at a mediocre level). Social skills/making friends: this would have to be my biggest issue right now, I made friends easy enough in high school but now I feel under-developed in this area. I looked into the Podcast section on here and have been listening to some Mating Grounds episodes and I really like it since I feel I am gaining a lot of insight on a topic I currently hold very little knowledge on. Now a lot of the content is a bit past where I am at now (I am looking for friendships, then maybe a relationship later on), but I feel a large chunk of it applies to friendships as well, its all about making people feel valued and mutual respect. When the topic of listening came up, it really made me see how much I miss the talks I would have with my female friends in high school, where listening was fun because I was learning so much and getting different perspectives. I used to be a good listener, I want to get back to that level. Okay so it got a bit derailed towards the end, so I'll leave it here. Take it easy.

Entry 2 Today has mostly been smashing out uni work for next week (Assignments, tutorial work, Test Revision) all that good stuff. This is pretty much going to be standard as I am in a position where I need to A the rest of the course to get a semi-decent pass overall. But this is the position I have put myself in and I am holding myself accountable. Speaking of accountability, I booked a counselling session through the University for a few weeks from now, ideally I would have wanted it earlier but many kids are stressed out approaching exams. I hope to come out of the session with some ideas on improving aspects of myself which have decayed while I was gaming (social skills mostly) and also any general advice they have on addiction. BUT the other benefit from this session will be that I intend to book another session for early on in next semester so it will be another point of accountability so they can ask me "So have you been going to class/not gaming/being productive?" to which I will answer "Yes!" and the warm internal fuzziness of accomplishment/progress will ensue . So that is the long term return of that session, to add another point to the "accountability network", made up of the people who want to see you succeed. Bad part of today: I didn't really get out of my room/textbooks at all. Tomorrow I am going to go shopping and maybe shoot some hoops at the uni gym if there is some court time spare to counter balance this. This makes me a little bit worried though, because I can see myself justifying not getting out in the weekend, with that I need to study all the time, but this isn't really true or healthy. So if anyone wants to mention some tasks they assign to their weekend to make them get out of the house then I'm all ears. Must say this journal writing thing is pretty legit, and also thanks for saying it is reasonably clear to read, English (Writing) was always my worst class in high school.

Alright General Info: 21year old male from New Zealand. Been PC gaming whole life, originally RTS or TBS games then onto the big offender of Dota 2. Returned to University this year and am in 2nd year. Am here from StopGaming subreddit, 24 days game-free with the intention to never return. Okay so I left University the first time as I was just gaming and not going to course, returning this year has been pretty much the same story until I made a change to quit gaming. Have just finished this week where I had a few meetings with Dean/Lecturers and sorted that I can still pass 2 of the 4 papers for this semester which I am pretty happy with since exams start in 4 weeks. I was trying to journal my thoughts a bit in a word document but figured this would be easier. I was planning on doing a half marathon in late June but unfortunately have had some old pain in my knee start up again so might not have enough time to heal and then train for it. This has kind of knocked me a bit and has reinforced that I should make a journal like this so I have something to reflect on and another place to express myself when unplanned bad things happen. When adjusting to any big change there will be days when you feel good and days where you feel bad about that change.When you are already feeling down and it gets combo'd with some sweet unexpected life complications, well that is when I think I am most likely to say "screw it" and relapse. I took a break from gaming for 2 months last year, so I don't anticipate much craving until around then, but it is super important to me to try to understand the difficult head spaces I am likely to encounter before I reach them. I mean that seems a big part of how this community would work to me, you offer support/encouragement in return for insight into issues other people face and you may face those issues yourself later down the road. This is basically the format for my entries, where I just write down some ideas in my head and try to link them to recent stuff I have going on. I don't know how reader friendly that is but I mean there can't be a wrong format right Alright that is more than enough for first journal entry, have a good one.

Hello everyone, I'm known as Caged Bliss, 21 year old guy from small nation of New Zealand. Bit of my background: Been playing PC games since I was about 5 starting with Heroes of Might and Magic 1 (my gaming history goes something like HoMMs 1-5, C&C(all of them), warcraft 3, Dota 1/2). Honestly I would say I have gamed excessively since I was 6 or 7, but I was smart enough that this didn't have a noticeable impact until 2nd year university. I wasted an entire semester gaming and ended up leaving and working full time for 1.5years. I started at a new university this year and had the same issues again. So am now deciding I should quit games for good. I am coming here from the StopGaming subreddit where my badge tells me I am 24 days into the detox section of my recovery process. Wish everyone the best of luck with their personal development. Caged