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Regular Robert

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  1. Bobbie's 90+ day detox ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHEN FORGIVENESS IS GREATNESS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I feel strange today. I simply do and that is alright. When I got out of bed today, way behind schedule, the sun was shining. To me it felt like the sun was shining for me and only for me. So soft, so bright, so warm. So alive. Alive. The last two weeks, I have been working on an issue I haven't had the courage to face before. FORGIVENESS. I had finished my detox long time ago, but I never felt at peace, nor done. More or less, I felt like I had put a spade in the ground and opened up the surface. That is, in hindsight, what I have done. I teared open the surface. What do I mean by FORGIVENESS? Well, some time back I realized that my excessive gaming habits were part of something bigger. It was self medication, in a complete overdose. When I quit gaming I had the space in my mind and in my life to let things happen. And boy/girl, things happened. During the first days of my detox, I realized what I was trying to silence. Why I was trying to passify myself. I suddenly realized, there is a lot of pain inside of me. Pain, guilt, shame, pride, arrogance, anger, fear and grief. But since I was still living in a toxic environment, I could not let go. It just wasn't a safe place to let go. Like someone else wrote in his journal, you gotta change your environment to evolve. And that is true. So, I moved to a different place. People here are friendly. For the first time in my life, people are friendly by default. Of course, not all of them are friendly, but compared to my last situation, it is a huge improvement. And that gives me the room to fall and stand up again. If you live in a toxic environment, you cannot fall without being kicked or beaten. In some environments, people wait for others to fall, so that they can attack the "weak" in order to feel strong. But here, I feel safe to let got. And that is what I do. I let go. What I started to do recently is to let go of old emotions. Like I said, a huge variety of feelings is stored inside of me. Feelings are supposed to be temporary. You and I, we feel now and here. But we all know that human condition. Old feelings get repressed, suppressed and start to grow inside. It is like planting flowers or a tree. If you have a bad plant in your garden, it is best to tear it out of the ground as soon as you see it grow. If you ignore it, the roots will spread and in the end, you will have to dig a huge freaking hole into your own garden simply to get rid of what hurts. The same goes for emotions. If you repress or suppress them, their roots will spread and at some point, your whole emotional garden will look like it is weed-infested. Negativity will spread. Everything will have a negative aura. You look at people around you and you will feel like they all suck. While in truth, it is you who sucks in your own opinion and you simply project it onto others. That was and partly is, what I do. I blamed others for my condition. I looked at people and saw only negativity. "How can people dress like this? How can you say such things? Everybody around me is an idiot." - but halt, I am the idiot. I was thinking poorly of myself. I saw myself as a victim of conditions. As a bad person, so I deserved bad things. All these thoughts were a result of my emotional storage. For two weeks now, I write letters that I do or do not send. Some people left my life and left a crisis. So I write them a letter but I store it in a box. Some people left my life and left a crisis, but since I still stayed in contact, I write them directly. What I do is simple: I forgive them. I surrender to my emotions. I write down old situations that caused hurt and I forgive the person that caused them. The girlfriend that had sex with another man during our relationship. My parents that locked me up in a garden shed during my birthday when I was a child, so that I had to watch all the other kids enjoy the party while I was trying to scratch the wooden door to get out. The reason why they locked me up was because I opened a gift before I was allowed to open the gifts. So I was a prisoner at my own birthday party. That hurts. The memory still hurts but before recently, I tried to numb that hurt. I was necessary as a kid, otherwise I would not have survived. But I am 31 years old and I live my own life. Still, this emotion is stored inside of me and the realization that I game to numb myself struck me hard. I played games to flee from my very own emotions. Underneath these layers of hurt is a core and that core is a young kid that is hurt. So what I did back then was to lock up that hurt kid like my parents used to lock me up in a garden shed. I have tears in my eyes while I write this. But instead of numbing the hurt, I embrace it. It will not destroy me if I let it go. So, I wrote a letter to my parents, a letter that I do not send, but that is not necessary. See, I believe that all living creatures have one big soul. Only hurt and negativity gives us the feeling of being separated. But in truth, we are one. I forgave my parents and that unfaithful girlfriend. I let the hurt go. Today, I worked of my forgiveness-list - this list is huge since numbing myself was a great talent of me - and the universe showed me that it is the right way to go. I cried. A skill I wasn't capable of for many years of my life, since in my family, kids that cry would be punished. But I cried for that little kid inside of me. I wrote that letter, wrote what had happened back then and that it hurt me and in the end, I wrote that I forgive my parents for what they caused. I know they have kids inside of them as well. And they had been hurt as well. Hurt people spread hurt. Until these people let go of the hurt. I forgave them. A couple of minutes after I was done crying, I opened a bottle of wine and went into my garden to listen to music and play with the dog. You know, letting go makes you very sensitive for the beauty you have in your life. Like that unconditional love your dog shows you. Even if he is a naughty dog from time to time, he loves his human friend. When I went back inside, I had a call on my answering machine. My mom had called me and on the message she left, she called me "Bobby". A nickname she never gave me before. She said "she wanted to call her little Bobby" as if she felt that this little Bobby had broken out into tears just minutes ago. It is weird, how the energy in the universe works. An hour later, my wife came home. Oh, I forgot to mention it, I got married on the 14th of February. And when we talked, she said "hey look, there is a tea bag hanging inside our bush. How funny is that?" and I replied "yeah, I tried to throw it out of the window this morning. I tried to hit the compost." That in itself is rather banal, but what followed was extremely interesting. She had laid out that tea bag for me in the morning. So that I could use it for my morning tea and it is one of those tea bags that has a printed message on it. She said, may be it was "Karma" that made me fail my throw. When she walked out into the garden and picked up the bag, she also read the message on the bag. I could hear her shouting from the garden and came out as well and she handed me the bag. The message it read was "Forgiveness shows greatness". Any other day, I would not have cared. But today, this was a message from the universe, trying to reinforce me in my way of forgiveness. Bad things happen in life and most of the time, we do not have any control over the events. But we have control over how we react to these events. Letting go of the bad memories does not free the world of bad events, but it frees us of bad emotions that if being repressed or suppressed will grow inside of us and intoxicate our life-experience. Edit: Later that evening, after posting that essay, I had the longest telephone-talk with my mother ever. It was good and filled with love. I can only suggest to anybody to let go of all the emotional garbage that litters our mental basement. Stay strong, following quitters.
  2. What Bugg said can be quite useful for you. Having friends come over is nice, but it might help if you tell them that you would like them to not bring over consoles and video games. If they can respect you, they can respect your decisions. Otherwise, this will become a very tough detox. Just imagine an alcoholic would hang out in a bar, so triggering. May be, you can suggest to your friends that you guys rather play board games, "garden games" or simply stick to conversations. Aside from that, I am glad you found a way to get through it and even managed to produce a little painting.
  3. In past posts, you wrote a lot about how necessary a regular sleep pattern is for you. And now you managed to create one and it sounds like you totally have it under control, since you even could turn it into a "good" sleep pattern. The fact that you want to clean up your place and that you discovered you were not allowing yourself to have a nice home is a great step forward. Now ask yourself, why don't you allow yourself to have a nice place. Try to find the source of it. May be, it is because the five year old you did not have a nice home. May be it is something different. If you find the reason, acknowledge it and let it go. This will help a great deal. Another hint: Social anxiety. Use the same pattern. Ask yourself, why you are scared. You kind of already answered it, but the pattern can go on. "I am scared that everybody knows each other. Why? I am afraid I could be set aside. Why? I am afraid people could see me as an outsider. Why? I am afraid people do not see me the way I want to be seen. Why? I feel vulnerable when people do not see me the way I want to be seen." This way, you will get down to the core and at the very bottom of it, you will find the reason why you are anxious and it probably does not have anything to do with joining mid season. Important is, that you do not judge yourself. Don't judge yourself for feeling anxious. You are not a loser or something just because you are capable of feeling. If anxiety comes up, watch it, don't judge it. Observe what your mind is suggesting to you. Don't judge yourself for it. Focus on what you do now and what you do next. Like, what do you need to participate in the sport events? Focus on packing it. Focus on the way to get there. When there, focus on getting to know some people. What you do now and what you do next. And if, in the end, you still want to leave and you still do not like it, you are always free to leave. Aside from these hints, I do believe you made great progress. You managed to get some structure, especially measurable when it comes to healthy sleep patterns. You have some nice projects going on, DIY woodworking, which is awesome. You did not mention extreme YT video binging once, which has been one of your issues. So it seems, you got it under control. Also, I feel you are way more honest with yourself lately. You can see your own construction sites and you find ways to figure out why they exist. In sum, you are making nice progress and if you keep doing what you do and keep trusting yourself, you will walk through this phase of your like and grow with every step.
  4. People will always think someone is weird for various kinds of reasons. And every time they do, you have the chance to reinforce your self-trust, since after all, you are the only person whose opinion about your own decisions matter, because you have to live with the consequences.
  5. If you are stuck in a feeling, get up and move. Like, literally. Any movement will help you use up that energy that anxiety creates and at the same time, movement creates more energy that is not connected to anxiety. Try to dance, simple jump up and down or do anything else.
  6. Embrace this power of the warrioress!
  7. Your journal, spam as much as you want to. This forum is not about the number of posts somebody collected. This is just another example of anxiety. This is your journal, your place to reflect. Post as much as you need to and the way you feel is necessary.
  8. Accept your anxiety, but don't give in to it. Accept that this feeling comes up and has a right to do so, but keep in mind that it is just another feeling like every other. At the root of this anxiety is something else. You are not afraid to meet your friends. You are afraid of - and I can only guess - to make a fool out of ye, to be seen as invalid in your current situation, to not fulfill peoples expectations or whatever. At the root of your anxiety is something that happened way before today. But today, you are a strong, independent woman that decides on her own what she wants to do in her life and follows up on these decisions. You are your very own leader. You already gave up gaming for 5 days in a row. You know your capabilities and shortcomings. Now it is time to stop denying yourself the joy you could experience in your life. Attend this event with no expectations and the consciousness that you are in charge. Like you said, you can leave whenever you want to, you can talk about the stuff you want to talk about, you can decide whether you drink and if so, how much you drink. Surrender yourself to the anxiety. It is there and it wants to pull you back into your comfort zone, which is being alone, isolated in a place where nothing can happen because nothing will happen. That is alright. We all do have a desire to stick with what is familiar. But we grow when we accept these thoughts without any resistance and still walk the path we decide to walk. You have already grown and you will grow further. And you deserve joy, happiness, connection and friendship. Go for it, girl!
  9. That is awesome! You got stuff done without distracting yourself. Way to go! Setting and sticking to priorities is great progress. If minor tasks have to wait, they shall wait. Keep it up like that. Even if you happen to relapse or fall back, just stick to your fresh, working system! Great improvement.
  10. I can see that happening in the future. To me, it does not seem to be a matter of "if", but rather a matter of "when"! You will make it, bro. Continue the great work.
  11. Just keep it on the shelve and if you ever need it, tell me. Regarding the rest of your post, a few suggestions: When you come home and you know, you gotta do the dishes, do them right away. Do them first. Before you take a break, get yourself in a break-ready condition. As long as you know, there is stuff you gotta do, you cannot relax and the desire to procrastinate will rise. Do it right away. Also, connect doing the dishes with something you like. I would suggest you listen to a podcast while doing the dishes. Especially I would recommend "The Minimalists" and start with the last episode called "Emotions". There is a nice part about expectations. You should listen to it. Second, stop using YouTube and focus on one source of entertainment. You have some cool Netflix series to watch. So use them as a reward. Reward yourself at the end of the day with something you like. After all, you deserve it. But don't binge, set a goal up front. Like, 2 hours of watching Netflix. You can set an alarm clock or, depending on how long the episodes run, say you are going to watch 2 episodes or 4. And if you feel that you are no longer relaxed but watching to passify yourself, stop. It wont work perfectly on the first try but simply do it over and over again. If you don't watch for hours and get to bed in time, awesome. Getting to bed in time. Have at least 2 hours of peace before going to bed. Don't get off the screen and get to bed. Have some time to come down, to get sleep ready. Last but not least, have a piece of paper with you. Choose 4 things you want to achieve in your day. 2 easy achievements, like doing the dishes, tidying up, cooking. Have one that you gotta do, like preparing for a course. If that one is a larger thing, split it. If you know, in seven days you gotta need this stuff for class, split it into doable tasks. And finally, choose one achievement that you focus on. The most important achievement of the day. No matter whether it is something important, huge, small, banal or whatever. The thing you want to focus on. Keep this paper in your pocket and strike the stuff you achieved. This will deliver a feeling of achievement and confidence. While doing all this stuff, try not do think ahead too far. You need to be able to follow and catch up. When your mind is already at the end result which demands huge loads of work, the way ahead will look like an unbearable amount of effort and stress. Focus on what you do right now. What is necessary to do the dishes? Fill the sink with water, have a sponge and a towel near you. Take the first, easiest steps and than go from there and continue. Do not let your mind race away. What you do right now is most important. Preparing a course? Have a pen, paper, create a list of what has to be in it. Continue from there. I'll come back to the psychodoc-gender thingy but for now, try to apply the stuff I mentioned above. Start right here, right now. List 4 achievements for tomorrow. List them here and write them down on a piece of paper. Just do it. Don't overthink it, otherwise you will find millions of reasons why it won't work. Just do it. And tomorrow, see what has worked and was has not. This process does not focus on the goal "being game free", but focuses on the way to get there. Every little step you take is important.
  12. Your detox is already beginning to kick in. You will, most likely, reveal a lot more about yourself that you have not considered before, but now is crystal clear in front of your eyes. There is a good chance that the reason, the core problem, why you play games excessively, to escape reality, will rise to your conscious mind sooner or later. I own Sims 3 and 4, but never really got into it. I guess the main difference is that some people play it to actually simulate or roleplay. Like you said, creating people, leveling up their skills and such. For me, that was always an obstacle. I mainly used The Sims to "redesign" my apartment. That means, I always rebuild the exact proportions of my apartment, garden house or basement and used The Sims as a tool to test what I would like to see in my rooms and how I would decorate them and such. I guess that is the main reason why I absolutely hated Sims 4. There was only a limited creative potential and the focus was back on roleplaying and creating stories, which I saw an obstacle. So, yeah. I never really considered this a game and never got hooked. But I totally see the addictive potential. You can create an avatar and learn skills in no time, ultimately becoming a writer, cook, musician, artist and what not. That is instant gratification in its purest form, I guess. So, since you are so brutally honest to yourself, which is awesome, it is great that you abstain from this game as well, even if other people can play it without being triggered at all. That you spend much time on the forum is a good thing in the beginning. You need a place where you can vent your thoughts, emotions and cravings. It will become less over time, but for now I would say: Use this device as much as you need it. Your subconscious mind will tell you what is good for you and what is not. In sum, you have already made impressive progress so far. What is your phone-situation right now? Were you ever playing mobile games and if so, do you feel cravings for this device? If so, many people activate grayscale/monochrome on their phone to take away the colorful attraction it spreads. So yeah, great start. Keep up the great and honest work and see where it leads you!
  13. Hey Bugg, welcome to the forum. Be sure to create your very own journal in the forum. It will help you a lot. You said that you use gaming as an escape. When you stop, the issues you are trying to avoid will most likely come up, so be sure to have a place to write stuff down. In addition, be sure to prepare a couple of hobbies to fill the void that quitting games will create. you can use this as a resource: Hobby ideas. Of course, I wish you best of luck on your journey and tons of strength!
  14. Also, do you believe you would benefit from having a "mentor". Not like a real one, but I could offer you that we pick up a mobile message system of your choice and whenever you feel lost, you send me a message and I will try to help you with the current situation as good as I can. I have never done this before, but what could possibly go wrong? So yeah, if you like to, we could try to arrange it.
  15. Just a quick side note: I do not see you as rude at all. In fact, I feel this is probably your best post so far. I know I pushed you and I know it probably hurt, but when I read your text, I read so much honesty and most important: so many honest feelings. If you ask me, now you are on a good way. Now you are not totally neutral or correct anymore. This is the well that needs exploring. I will write a more detailed replay, but first I got somewhat of a weird question: You wrote this text on yesterday and you obviously felt frustrated and bad and annoyed and alone. How do you feel today? Did this text help you to vent some of that frustration? Has your mood changed in any way? Also, is your psychodoc male or female? I hope you are having a great day. Not necessarily productive, but simply great. Talk to you in a bit.
  16. The thing about willpower is that it is limited. You can only force yourself to do stuff you don't enjoy doing for a certain amount of time until you go postal. Exaggerated but you get the idea. So, I believe it might be helpful to find out what drains so much willpower from you that you have none left to even do the basic stuff in your life. On the other hand, not being able to do the most basic things in life could be an indicator for a depression. And depression is probably, simply put, mental pain that does not go away because the source of the pain prevails. In either case it will be useful to you to find out what it is that drains all your willpower. That is why I asked about your career. Your reply showed a tendency, but at the same time, something was odd. "Checks the most boxes" and especially "least sense of regret". That is what kinda struck me. I mean, sometimes we have to decide on a basis of "least amount of damage" or "least sense of regret", but I was expecting that you would say that you "enjoy" the courses and the work. I know that life is not all sunshine and rainbows and butterflies and fairy tales, but choosing a career path because it deliver the least sense of regret compared to other paths is odd. If you ask me how I feel and I reply, that I do not feel completely horrible, would you get the idea that I try to avoid saying that I feel bad. At least, I would be far from "good", right? Just a thought. If you ever have a couple of moments in silence and peace, try to think about the question again and try to answer it for yourself in a way that does deliver a definitive decision. Reading and watching stuff is basically entertainment if it does not deliver real information. Information that you have no use for is simply data. A lot of people have certain interests and get joy from consuming certain content, but that does not mean they would like this certain career path. Another thing that came to my mind is: Next time you watch or read something about history, military history, diplomacy and so on, try to ask yourself if you are reading this stuff right here, right now because you need the information it offers to progress in your courses and career or... because it is another, well rationalized way to procrastinate/entertain yourself. You see, there is a trap door there. If you consume this stuff, but it does not deliver anything useful to you, it might just be entertainment for the sake of procrastination. Be careful that this does not become/is not a trick of your mind to rationalize procrastination. Sometimes, we avoid doing the real task by working around it to generate a feeling that we actually worked on it. We were busy the whole time, which grants us some pseudo-gratification, but in reality, we avoided the true task. Just be careful, that is all I want to say. I don't try to push you, but deep down in your mind and heart, there is an unresolved issue. An issue that remains untouched. A thing that strikes me is that your detox does not really seem to be too effective. Like you said, you are compensating gaming with procrastinating in different ways. From the journals I have read, people that are close to the middle of their detox had a basic system that kept on going. They had a foundation, basic structure. Again, not trying to diminish your progress, but I feel that you cannot really progress like this. Try to honestly evaluate how much of what you do is compensation. Like, what kinds of new hobbies did you manage to find and start? What do you do to get some recreational time? What do you do to generate energy? And than, some measurable goals would be beneficial to you. "I got out of bed and managed to do some stuff" is nice, but a goal that, on fulfillment, will generate gratification and satisfaction will boost your confidence and sovereignty. Because than, you would force yourself to not only do the required minimum, but do what is necessary to reach your goal. There is something underneath all that behavior. Something untouched. Something, that makes you do the minimum every day and mostly in the last possible moment to not fail completely. You gotta be entirely, brutally honest with yourself and dig up what is buried there.
  17. If it is possible to like ... write down my story regarding loot boxes and than send it to the guys, that would be alright. I could do that. But appointed online meetings or such will be more complicated, especially due to the timezone differences. But yeah, you may connect me. By the way, love the new avatar picture!
  18. Corentin, do you feel that you lack willpower? Like the willpower to do basic things? And if so, are you happy in your current career path?
  19. Create a shared blog about how to keep long distance relationships healthy and alive. ;) Sounds stupid, I know but somehow I believe it would be a cool project and others could benefit from it. Otherwise, find something you both like and create a blog or facebook page about it. Otherwise, you said talking feels dull and I know that feeling. I have multiple long distance relationships and the problem always was the way we had contact. Chatting, skyping whatsapping on a daily basis does not work. It simply does not. If you talk to somebody on a daily basis, you will probably run out of content quite quick. That is why gaming worked. You had something to talk about continuously because the content was generated while you talk. I solved my problem by reducing the amount of contact. In the old times, people wrote letters that could take forever to arrive. So, you always had something to talk about since so much happened while you were waiting for the mailman. If you reduce the amount of chatting or talking, the conversations will improve. If they do not improve at all, there might be a chance that gaming was what kept you guys together and without it you feel that there is not much left. But that is not the first condition I would assume. Simply try to reduce the amount you guys have conversations and may be keep a list of stuff you would like to talk about. Like, when something happens and you totally think "I should tell [blank]", write it down. Or send a text message or email. Aside from that, if there is a shared project you guys could start, try it. I wish you that it works out for you two. :)
  20. Steve, have you found other activities to replace gaming? Are they good enough to keep you focused during your daytime? Also, do you know why you tend to relapse? Like, what is the trigger and what ways could you develop to avoid your triggers?
  21. Hitaru, I read quite a lot of your posts. Not all of them and I often miss some, but quite often, they kinda break my heart a little. Bare with me, this might be a long speech, but I feel you need this mental slap and mental hug. I once suggested to you that you go offline for a while. I did this, because I was drunk and when I am drunk I tend to have super-power empathy skills or something. Or not, who knows. Anyway, from reading your posts it becomes clear to me that you are stuck in some sort of devastating spiral. The worst part of this spiral is, however, the guilt factor. You do not fall behind. If reading journals creates such feeling, stop reading them until your emotions rest in their natural balance again. "The feeling of falling behind" goes hand in hand with self-accusation. You suggest to yourself that you do not invest enough effort, don't have enough strength or generally spoken, that you are inadequate. You are not. Quitting games, living a meaningful life full of love and friendship and sunshine and mental balance and so on and so forth is NOT a task or a mission. It is a goal. A goal nobody will ever reach, because nobody can always live in a constant condition of pure awesomeness. It is only a goal and what is important is not whether you reach that goal or not, but the steps you take on the way towards fulfilling that goal. Because that is where life happens. On the way towards our goals. Not at the end of the way. You live now. And if you decide to punish yourself for giving up acting school a hilarious long time ago, than do it for a moment but than ... stop. And after you stop, it is time to shift. A couple of days ago, I decided to give up my podcast website. I loved doing it when I first started it, a couple of days into my detox. I loved doing it and it was the most important thing to me back than. But it was important to me, because I was living in my personal hell. I was gaming because of the fact that I lived at a place I hated, surrounded by people I hated. The worst kinds of people. And in the place where I lived, I did not feel safe, because my alcoholic, drug addicted neighbors kept fighting in the stairwell, punched or apartment door, punched the wall to our bathroom, broke into our basement to steal our stuff ... it was a nightmare. So I gamed. And after I stopped gaming, I had to live this nightmare again. So I picked up a hobby, which was podcasting and such. A year later, moved to another city and it took me yet another half year to accept that in this city, people aren't scum. Like, some are but most of them are extremely friendly and peaceful and it was hard for me to let go. "To let go". Which leads me to the next chapter of this wall of text. We have to let go. Everybody has to let go at some point. Like I said, a couple of days I decided to stop doing the podcast thingy. It was useful for me back then but I can't get myself to continue it. Instead of talking to people online, I feel an extreme urge to connect with real people. Outside. While having a podcast is great to express yourself, you cannot have a real conversation. And talking to people online never felt fulfilling to me. I miss real people. That is why I decided to shift and do something else. But wait, that means that ... I gave up. Like you said you gave up the acting school. Saying this already implies ... well, giving up. Defeat and such. It does not necessarily mean that we are defeated, but you know the connection between giving up and failing. It is so close to each other, at least mentally. Anyway, in order to continue living our lives, we need to let go. I could not fight the feeling of failing, so I did what was necessary: I forgave myself. In order to actually let go, this old stuff needs to get out of our heads and hearts. You gave up acting school. That does not mean you failed at it. You simply decided to do something else, or it wasn't the right time or whatever reason it was. Important is, you had a reason to do it. Which means, it was important that you took this decision. But now, a long time after you made this decision, it is time to let go of the acting school. And if you still feel bad about it - and judging from the words "torture" and "staple nightmare" I kinda feel that you do - it is time to forgive yourself. I mean it. YOU. Have. To. Forgive. YOURSELF. You quit acting school. Fine. Write a letter to yourself. Write about everything you feel when thinking about acting school. Especially this NEET thingy. This is not a race. Your former companions are not winners while you are a loser. You live your very own life. You make your very own decisions and you are the only one that has to validate these decisions. You did what you felt was necessary. You CHOSE and now stop punishing yourself for this choice and start living with it. Start living with the consequences. Consequences often sound so harsh and dark and harmful, but consequences are completely neutral. The way we feel about them determines whether they are useful or not. Your mindset determines how you see the resulting consequences of your choices. You quit acting school, awesome! Now you have time and energy to do something else. Something you really want to do. Isn't that a good thing? And if you talk with your former companions about your employment, why should it be a nightmare? Because you are still on your way to find your truly desired employment? Because you failed sometimes? So what? Show confidence! Gain confidence! In order to feel confident about your choices, you gotta accept them and you gotta stop feeling ashamed or guilty or bad or inappropriate. So you are a gaming addict, what about it? You had a conflict in your life and you are working on it. Does that make you a weakling? No, it does actually make you a strong person. You are in charge and you are doing a great job, you just have to see it. Hitaru does what Hitaru does. Don't feel bad about it. So, like I said ... stop this spiral. I would suggest that you go offline again. For a couple of days. Leave the PC to collect dust somewhere. And try not to distract yourself for some time. Expose yourself to your very own thoughts and feelings. And when you start thinking and when you start feeling, have a pen and paper ready and write the stuff down. Write a letter to yourself about how you feel, why you feel this way, about your thoughts about you and why you think so and in the end, make peace with yourself. Forgive yourself. Than, either burn this letter or bury it somewhere. Repeat that process as often as you need to. Do it for the acting school situation and in case the emotions come up again, write another letter. Especially before you go there. You, my friend, need to accept your choices. You are such a great guy and like I said, it breaks my heart to see you suffer, but I cannot overlook the fact that it is you who creates your suffer in the first place. Let go of all the times you "failed, gave up or lost". Forgive yourself and continue living the consequences of your choices. Turn them into what you want them to be. You are in charge of your life and you decide whether it is a grand life or not. You decide whether you want to see life as a constant race against competitors or as a adventurous hike where you decide where to go. I love you mate, even if I don't know you. But I see this amazing spark in you.
  22. May be, you could try to get rid of the guilt. It sounds like the feeling of guilt might be one reason why you turn to games again. Like, you game for a day, well happens. But than you feel guilty and than, you numb that feeling of guilt with more gaming. It is just an idea, but may be, you could try to forgive yourself. If necessary, write a letter to yourself, explaining why you were playing again. Than, you try to forgive yourself. You could try it. If it works, you could apply it to other parts of your life too. Make a mistake, learn from it, shake it off and continue what you were doing before the mistake happened. Quitting games, letting go of an addiction is not a thing that you work on and than its done. Every day, you abstain. You say "no, thank you". And many people relapse. I relapsed multiple times and like you, every relapse was necessary and kinda helpful, because after every time, I learned a little something about myself. If you are impatient, try to train your patience. ;) I am sure there are tiny exercises to improve your patience. Aside from that - again - you do not have to feel guilty. You are not quitting video games because you must, but because you want to. You are not a failure, only because you relapsed. After all, you did play for a couple of days. Back in days, you played every day, right? So there is quite some improvement. And you will improve more and more over time. It is a tough quest, but you are doing it, girl! :)
  23. Important. What other people see in you is not really in the radius of your local control, but... you will not be a hoax unless you see yourself as a hoax. So the next question should be, why does a part of you see you as a hoax? Or, why do you have to come across as the perfect guy to feel ... valid? Meditate about these questions. I mean it, sit in a quite room, in front of a blank wall and simply ask yourself this question. Than, wait. If you feel the need to distract yourself, if you feel that your mind wanders off, ask again. The answer might not come to you as one phrase, but your subconscious will deliver an answer over time. That is why I keep harassing you to use your damn journal. ;) I mean it, write your thoughts out. Things will clear up and you will understand why you do what you do. You simply need to write it out or talk about it, but since you said, that this is the place where you feel secure discussing the addiction issues, wriiiiiite. (No pressure though :D) Train it. Take any situation possible. Especially those that cause the urge to procrastinate. If the workload seems to be huge in your head, put it on a piece of paper. A folded, simple blank sheet and a pen is all you need. Split the workload into simple goals. "Need to iron my pants" and "need to do the dishes". Take 5 or 10 minutes to prepare your list. Than rewrite it and put it into order. That might sound dumb, but it is useful in different kinds of ways: The workload in your head will grow. Take your last trip to the US for example. You thought about having to iron your suite. Than you thought of something else, than again, something else, something else aaaand than about having to iron your suite again. You keep reminding yourself of what you have not done yet and it stacks every time. The more often you think about it, the more important it will become. And at some point, a simple thing like ironing your suite will be a fucking huge thing to do. With such an amount of importance, that it will scare you. If you put it on paper however, you can totally forget about it, as long as you remember that there is stuff on your piece of paper. Thus, it will stay the easy task it is. Also, after putting up this list, try to fulfill the tasks as soon as possible. No pressure, but asap. When you have the time to do it and nothing better to do, do it. No thinking about how you feel about it. You got the time, you do it. The more you act like this, the more confident you will become in getting stuff done. The more you procrastinate, the lesser the chance you actually do it. And of course: Keep doing it this way to create a habit. Start with easy stuff. After eating, do your dishes. If you got the time, do it. I really like this last entry of yours. It shows that the journal can do its magic and it shows, that you grow. And you do grow. I like it. One last thing ... it might be a bit ... direct but ... is there some unresolved issue with your dad?
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