Introduction

[kingwell]

Hi everyone in this forum. I'm a Chinese guy who is currently studying in the US for a master's degree. I'm 25.

I began playing video games when I was very young, at primary school. At that time I had several friends who enjoyed playing video games and they often gathered together to play video games. I was not so interested in playing video games then. But I felt some kind of isolated if I didn't play with them, so I pretended that I was interested in games just to have them around. In fact, I now noticed they were not the good kind of friends and should have run away from that relationship already.

However, it seems that the habit of playing games stayed inside me. I couldn't stop playing the first semester at middle school. One lucky thing for me is that I met a very nice girl when I reached puberty. We became good friends and she fulfilled all the 4 needs mentioned in the article "how to quit playing video games forever", which I noticed several days before when I read the article. Ever since the second semester of middle school, I quit playing video games for 5 and a half years. That was the best time of my life and I entered one of the best universities in China after high school.

I didn't feel the need of playing video games for a long time. Things changed when I entered college. When I was in middle and high school, the teachers and my parents would force me to study every day, and I have a clear goal that I should enter college. After entering college, all of a sudden, nobody is in charge of me, in other words, I'm on my own for the first time in my life. I became confused and couldn't figure out what to do every day because I didn't have a goal since then. Now that I'm studying for master's degree after so many years. I find that I still didn't solve the problem: what I should do to make my life colorful. That's why I joined the Respawn and want to seize the chance of changing my life.

I hope I can make progress with everyone here in the forum and see a new way of living my life.

Best,

Jingwei

 

[ha535065]

Hello Jingwei! 

Welcome to the group!

Thanks for sharing your story with us! It's powerful and resonates with so many of us. I too am a master's student, and have been away from gaming for some time, but after stressed increased, I started to play games again. You've come to the right place!  

It seems like you really enjoyed not having video games in your life and it impacted your life positively. However, given that you changed your environment, and were put into a new setting, and were expected to do things on your own (setting your own goals, hold yourself accountable, etc)., it was a difficult moment where you were adjusting and feeling very uncomfortable. This definitely sounds scary, but seems like it marked a new phase/transition in your life towards becoming independent and growing as a person. But, in this process, it sounds like you started to play video games again. This is something I experienced too!

As we get older and are given more responsibility, choice, and freedom to create our own goals, it can be somewhat scary. If we played games for a long time, the goals were already created for us, rewards given to us, and we knew what we needed to do. Versus, being in a new master's program, setting or environment, some of those goals we have to create for ourselves. And, if we didn't develop those skills because we had a history of playing video games and or had others (our parents/caretakers/teachers) do those things for us, when the time comes for us to create those for ourselves and hold ourselves accountable, I think it's natural for us to feel confused, discomfort, anxious, fear, worry, and a variety of other feelings. Usually, in this situation, we will try to cope or manage stress and feelings by going to something we are good at or skilled at, or had past experiences of feeling "SAFE." For example, playing video games or doing a particular behavior because it makes us feel we are in control, have safety, and and we are skilled at it.

One thing to keep in mind jingwei, doing anything new is initially uncomfortable and has high levels of discomfort. That's what adjustments are, they are supposed to be discomforting because it's new situations/experiences/scenerios. However, with time, practice, patience,  it gets better. But, during adjustments and transitions, It's so important to have support! And what matters is that you are here! You have made a choice to take action (being proactive) and we are here to support you! We hope we can be part of your journey in making your life "more colorful" and help you in the process of "seizing the chance of changing your life." I think that's a goal we all share in our recovery process. 

Edited June 13, 2017 by ha535065

[Cam Adair]

Welcome! Thanks for grabbing a copy of Respawn, it will help you a lot. If we can answer any other questions let me know.