jesusboy77

I remember once being so frustrated with video games that I pried open my console controllers with a knife and crushed them with a hammer, and I've also been depressed to the point of nearly hurting myself. Both times I moved the knife as far away from me as I could and people I really loved as close to me as I could. Getting rid of your video games and surrounding yourself with people who care about you and who can relate to what you are going through are definitely very helpful steps for you to take! Hang in there! Also, I don't really like to make too many practical suggestions to people who might really just need others to shut up and listen to them instead of bombarding them with advice, but I have to say that I would not have known that English was your second language if you had not said something about it. You could try a translating job if all else fails. Good luck, I wish all goes well for you, and I will pray for you!

Welcome! Also that was very poetic @polymath! Have you ever done storytelling or writing? Or perhaps spoken word?

Hey Joseph or @RControl! I feel like I should say something regarding meditation (or prayer if you are religious). I'll just give the non-religious advice unless you want the religious/spiritual too (just tell me if you want it). There are two usual focuses of the meditation that I do (3 if you count the whole God and Jesus thing): nothing (or as close to nothing as possible) or some personal dilemma with options/ issue with choices. Focusing on nothing can be very difficult sometimes because it can be very boring to be still (especially for someone with ADHD like me) and that can be a trigger for video games. Nevertheless, what I do is I acknowledge what I hear and see and release the thoughts from my mind. For example, I might see a squirrel, and then my mind will say "ok, there's a squirrel!" and then I release that thought from my mind. Then I move on until I see a tree or hear the air conditioner or hear Michael Myers breathing right behind me and do the same thing: notice, acknowledge, release. Usually I only do this as preparation for the second focus of meditation I do. If I want to focus on a question or dilemma that's been bothering me (from small questions like "what homework assignment should I start on first?" or "what should I eat for lunch" to major questions like "should I date Katie?" or "should Katie and I use protection?" or "What should Katie and I name our kids?" or even deep questions like "Why does evil happen in the world?" ), then I will often either have a discussion or a debate with myself trying to think about the issue from multiple perspectives (almost like pros and cons). I did this a lot after doing high school debate and having to argue against my initial opinion often times would change the way I thought when I realized my old way of thinking was wrong or illogical. I usually find a lot of insight focusing on questions I have Last thing, I saw you also were interested in exercising! Why not combine meditation and exercise in the form of yoga or martial arts? I hope this helps at least a little and good luck man!

Thanks for the suggestion Joba! I'll definitely check out out duolingo sometime! That suggestion actually reminded me of a question that I had thought to ask @Cam Adair earlier. Although I'm only in the first chapter of the Respawn guide (and I don't know this is covered in the later chapters), I was wondering if all games, not just video games, could fuel an addiction? I know it seems like a silly question, but after thinking for a while I realized that I am afraid that my brain may have subconsciously learned to associate normal games with video games, as 5 of the 8 reasons I want to quit video games would sometimes also apply to normal games for me (both make me feel like I'm wasting time, both make me irritable when I am done, both can make me lose sleep, both encourage me to procrastinate a lot, and I struggle to limit my time on both). Maybe this is just early anxiety, but I don't wanna let this anxiety build up inside me. What are your thoughts?

Hey guys! I'm Jesusboy77 (I know it's probably not the most common username but I'll explain why I chose it later in this post) and I am anxious, slightly afraid, content, excited, hopeful, relieved, and worried to quit video games! Basic background info you should know about me: I am from Birmingham, AL, am 19 years old, am a rising sophomore in college somewhere in Tennessee, am planning on majoring in Spanish or History, and later going to seminary after college to become a Christian minister or preacher (hence the username) and maybe possibly a schoolteacher sometime as well. My personality (in regards to my video game addiction): I have ADHD and am hyper. Yes I do get distracted easily, but weirdly I can also get occassionally hyper focused on somethings, especially pleasurable things like video games, and ignore everything else that's more important, like eating or people or something called real life. Plus I have an addictive personality, so it's almost like I'm addicted to video games or something crazy like that! But that's preposterous, I don't have a problem at all! (wink wink) The serious part of my introduction (I am usually not that serious but I decided to cut the silly rambling out of this post because it's already really long): I obviously am addicted to video games because I'm posting on this forum. I played my first video game on the playstation I got in preschool and dropped out of playing soccer in kindergarten, boy scouts sometime in third grade, basketball either 4th or 5th grade, and baseball after fall of 6th grade. Then after 6th grade confirmation I decided church was too boring and that playing video games on Sunday morning would be so much more fun. So after 6th grade all I was really doing for fun was playing video games and I had stopped hanging out with my friends. I played daily once I got home from school until 1 or 2 or sometime in the morning from 7th to 9th grade because I was a very awkward bullied kid with no real friends except on Playstation Network. And so I quickly became your average shy insecure "shouting and cursing every other sentence" middle school boy who plays way too many video games to try to escape real life. At the beginning of 9th grade, I went to a new school where I had no friends, a private school so I could be more academically challenged. So I was upgraded to a slightly smarter than average shy insecure... high school boy... to try to escape real life. As I was starting 9th grade, one of my family members got in a car wreck in August, my grandma passed away in September, and my family had a hard time coping with the loss, and one of my family members started becoming addicted to something that resulted in a few months of having a level five hoarder house, an intervention in April, and a court order for one month of rehab for my family member. The summer after 9th grade I decided to go on a Christian Youth Retreat even though I knew absolutely no one in the Youth Group. To make a short story long, not only did I end up opening myself up enough that week to dress up like someone from one direction and then get on stage in front of 700 people and lip sync a one direction song with 4 other guys in the youth group, and I felt accepted in the Church for who I was (I know that regretfully doesn't always happen for everyone but this post is about video game addiction not my religious beliefs) and I felt compelled to improve my life. So I started to try to stop playing video games but found it to be rather difficult even when wasting so much time playing them was against my beliefs (not the video games themselves, just the addiction and wasting too much time I was doing). And to make a long story short I've had lots of times where I would stop playing for a while and then relapse and make up for lost time without video games. The longest I've gone without video games was for 4 months during the first semester of my freshman year at college. But I really want to make it 4 years without video games like Cam has done! And I'm respawning now Also I'm really glad to find this forum One more thing... Now that I am quitting video games I hope to spend more time with my friends and family and doing community service to try to live out my faith and improve my Spanish!