Faroe Islander

Day 1 Today I concentrated on sports hanging out with friends and studying Woke up early and rode my bike to the waterfall we had planned to visit had a good time talking and swimming a bit though I wish the journey there hadn't taken me as long as it did as I only got to talk and be with them for about an hour (wind and getting lost are funny like that), unfortunately in that time I forgot I was carrying my phone with me and soaked it which means that if I don't become the IT guys equivalent of the Frankenstein doctor I'll have to struggle a lot more when contacting friends, managing money and not trying to get lost in the traffic jungles of Europe. I only hope that the friend that I had promised to call to visit doesn't get mad at me I tried to apologize but had to wait until I came back home to do be able to do it with the computer TLDR Had a good day with shitty luck, phone went glu glu no more bzz bzz me cry cry

Thanks Paul I appreciate the kind words of encouragement Hope you keep doing as well as you seem to be doing on your journal we will all make it as long as we keep trying

Day 1 1st half of the day I had to stay at home for the whole morning which as expected brought trouble, tried to get by with music and podcast but it ended as I expected, I'm used to relapses been having them for the past 5 years so there is no big epiphany or breakdown just a bit of disappointment and knowing that I just have to keep going, managed to finally get outside It's hot but nothing that a bit of shade and enough water can't fix. I'll start again and now focus on continuing to reduce screen time and getting some good reasons habits and motivators to get out of the house. For now hanging out with a couple friends during the evening and studying a bit in the park should suffice to at least win the rest of the night and improve my overall average Note to self: Try to not get discouraged when you fail 1 task in the day accept it and do damage control don't let it bring you down you can still make your day great "better late than never"

Day 0 Last day of preparation Did a test run of what a normal day might look like, mornings and middays went well, hardest part are evenings and nights, specially during weekends when the library is closed Surprisingly even on normal times I'm starting to sometimes get tired and avoid the internet a bit or at least push it aside, must look into this it will provably not last all summer and it will probably disappear in the first days and weeks of the quitting journey but for now it gives me hope that a future with no internet or very limited internet is possible I'll try to develop this further and stay away from risky places (home) during dangerous times (early evening and night) and focus maybe on going to the library drawing or during sports at these times or trying to convince friends to hang out at these times For now trusting myself on not opening the internet (very soft blocker aka: can be deactivated in just 1 click) at least until midday was a good idea so I'll try to keep it and maybe expand it to the more dangerous hours of the day when I get more confident and have more hobbies Will see how it goes so far I'm really pleased with this current progress although I know from todays experience that if I don't do anything about the early evenings and nights I'll end up struggling a lot with boredom and general cravings

Day -1, preparation Morning was pretty great went cycling for 4h to prepare for biking trip Middays are tiring and I start closing myself off which is really bad but often just leads to some wasted time Afternoon was quite good managed to organice my day go to the library and hanged out with a friend for a while The early night was decent, even though I managed to finally cook a new weird recipe I spent to much time looking at videos and almost burnt my food The night was bad lately I had been getting better in terms of decreasing the time I spent on the internet and going to bed earlier today I was no longer the case I ended up sinking into a 2-3h binge and relapsing on some of my other more minor addictions I have dealt with this situation before I know that staying up and being harsh on myself for this slip up won't let me deal with it better taking action has always been a better idea, maybe just journaling whenever it happens can be a solution, it helped this time, but it feels very discouraging to have had an opportunity to resist the cravings and gain a lot of momentum from them. Guess I'll need to work on my mindset, with my track record of bad experiences with the internet and lost opportunities because of it I can't go around not fully believing that I can do it or not fully committing to the process of quitting It would just prolong the suffering waste more opportunities and make the process just that much more complicated. But yeah habits, managing expectations, deciding what is allowed and for which reasons and pulling through with everything I say I am going to do are the things I need to absolutely focus on, specially the last one this is a mental battle and I can't say I'm already defeated before I even started

Day -2 preparation Hard to get up at the right time and start the morning activities that I had planned out still have to work on that. Midday went well hanged around with friends for a while, It feels weird avoiding game topics but we managed to have more or less a good time though sometimes I feel like I should try to participate a bit more and find more activities and topics to talk about. Afternoon followed suit with sport and study being enough to pass the time though I don't feel like I accomplished a lot, more like I just managed to make another day go by while doing a bit of work, I hope on the upcoming days I can finally manage to concentrate more and get more realistic expectations about how much I was supposed to do Night went just fine didn't try to innovate in the kitchen because of time issues but at least managed to go to sleep earlier than yesterday so that's at least something. Overall not the best of days but at least managed to reduce the time spent on the internet and fill that time with other activities I hope that in the upcoming week I finally manage to get my schedule sorted and start enjoying these new activities more, Tomorrow I'll focus on the morning as it is the thing that has been more affected my bad internet habits I hope to recover this set of activities as they used to be the thing that kept me going and helped me have enough time and peace of mind to relax in the evenings and nights

Day -3, preparation, getting things straight Managed to finally prepare to go to bed at a reasonable time and actually stop internet binge for sleep, sports and a bit of reading, small improvements but a victory is a victory Recalled a conversation with a friend and started to think that this problem with the internet in general might stem from the fact that I am usually a boring person and have nothing I am passionate for or really care about right now no gf or reliable group of friends to around no projects going on or special things to do apart from the bike trip. Should do something about that as right now I feel like I'm using the internet and games as a way to escape boredom and avoid having to go through all the work that and stress that would come from actually pushing for the groups to go out or start a look for a project/hobby I truly enjoy (like in not just to passing the time but actually feeling good about it or getting memorable experiences out of it . Will try hanging out with friends tomorrow morning, reading, studying for my driving license exam and generally trying to develop habits to replace old ones plus giving me time to ponder different ideas and take some action

Day -4, preparation Currently focussing on setting the bases for new habits to replace the old ones like going to the library doing sport and studying a new course. Managed to correct a bit the Sleep time turning it back 3h which is great, still have to do more and focus on implementing a no digital device after 10pm policy. Still need to work on getting hobbies and activities to replace gaming on these hot summer days need something to stay outside the house but manage to remain in the shade or inside a building of sorts so mosquitos don't eat me alive, will try reading in the library waking up earlier to have more time to put into cycling practice and hanging out with friends. Planning to quit completely this Wednesday coinciding with a trip through the mountains to deal with withdrawals and boredom. In the days prior I´ll try to find new activities to replace gaming create new habits figure out exactly what parts of the internet I want to quit + reasons for it and slowly chip away at the old habits and time on the internet

Hello everyone I don't know how to write this since I have never been in a support group before and I still have doubts about what to do and strive for or if this is the right place to ask for advice. I am a young adult which has missed out on a lot of experiences and opportunities due to problems spawning from or related with internet overuse and a general introverted scaredy nature. I have tried to quit video games and social media content (youtube and twitch) for about 4-5 years now, with varying degrees of success. Over the course of these years I have had good streaks of up to a month without gaming which was more or less good as on average it decreased the amount of days spent feeling down. Despite these big accomplishments I always end up coming back to games or videos starting with something small apparently harmless like a meme or music and then escalating into a 12h or more binge ending with back and emotional pain as well as throwing my normal and sleeping schedules off leading to a negative feedback loop where the more hurt I am the less I go outside and the less I believe I can break out of this. Although I don't know how much it will take or how I will deal this dumpster fire that I created for myself I hope I can find some help advice and new perspectives in this community and hopefully in the future be able to also give back to it.