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This is me, I guess.


Xonor

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My first name is Conor, 19, from Ireland.

I believe I more or less suffer from game addiction, and have been trying to come to terms with it for some time now.

Most games do not bring me great pleasure anymore, unless I play them with friends. I do not go out a lot, although meeting up with my friends a while ago was very enjoyable. I more or less dropped out of a life sciences college course last year, mainly because it's not really what I wanted to do (going back to do nursing this year).

I don't know if gaming is the reason I consider myself a failure. It's been a somewhat large part of my identity and/or cultural consumption, but I manage to find time to read books, hold down a job to get back into college, and take care of my incredibly ill mother (early onset Parkinson's), a suicidal sister, and a Dad who I can't seem to really engage with anymore.

I'm sceptical about quitting games cold turkey. I choose not to go out a lot because it's prohibitively expensive in this country given my current financial status. My dad has begged me to continually go out, with friends that have gone on placement in college and have continued to not care about me, in the same way they didn't care about towards the end of secondary school when I got out of my near-suicidal depressive phase, to find that people mainly wanted to talk to me because of my good Bio and Chem grades.

I'm not sure is that anti-social feeling just down to the fact that, even outside of gaming, I cannot give a shit about sports anymore (secondary school = highschool for the confused), and I'm just so fucking fed up with trying to not end up where I am, and then realising I'm here. I can't get interesting in normal culture - in the same movies, music, lifestyle

I should probably stop rambling, to be honest.

I'm tired of video games not really being fun, and being a chore. I'm also tired of constantly hitting a blank wall with drawing and stand up comedy, two hobbies that I've tried to stick at, but am convinced that I'm just being pretentious, and that, like Ireland itself, nothing I will do will be remotely good (to my standards, which are of course high), and should stick to reading and video games.

I'm really fucking tired of eating too many carbs, even though my last good investment, a weightlifting set, has been immensely useful in both getting active and getting active in a meaningful way (I'm really too fat to proper cardio, and while I do judo, I don't think I can really desire to get into it properly, as almost everyone who I trained with has left, and there are no other clubs in the area remotely as good as my current). It feels like a chocolaty digestive ouroboros.

I have maybe two close friends, one of whom I'm going to meet this Sunday, to play some Borderlands, as we now have two controllers to play together. Having read all of this, I was considering just trying to do something else together for a while (we used to watch the entirety of both twin peaks, and that was quite enjoyable, as we struggled to understand what the fuck was going on) and maybe trying to go back to my other friends? But given that I've been out of college for two years, it seems pointless.

I can't give a shit about dating, convinced that I shouldn't really try. I did try, in secondary school, but mainly got rejected.

I hate my country's alcoholism, I hate trying to fit in with friends who are so fucking far ahead that it seems pointless to even try. I guess I can try this 90 day quitting thing, but living with my parents with soaring rent prices, my own college career fuckups, my sexual frustrations, and my own self-hatred manifesting as projection and pure misery - to the point of what I fear may be emotionally hurting my own mother, just seems to be impossible. I'd like to hope that quitting for 90 will make my life better, but I bet it'll remind the reason I got into it in the first place.

I can't get to sleep anymore. I assume it's because I'm typing this at 03:30, but I cannot be away from entertainment for very long, for fear of relapsing. Ahaha, fuck, I spelled it out to myself.

I'm done for now. I'll see you in the morning, or not.

Conor

 

 

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No.

Thank you for the suggestion, though.

I do not think self-help books will be of any great help. Reading regular books, does help. Strange as it may sound, but the near-insane ravings of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, which I've started re-reading, have helped remind me of own nihilistic outlooks, and how absurd they may seem, or how they tend to play out in similar ways in the book as in my own. Life imitates art, and so on.

With regards to setting discipline, it is probably worth getting that journal up. I'm doing it now. I'm having a hard time setting any particular goal. Might aim for something something drawing.

My parents were both life coaches. My mother got Parkinson's, and she hasn't really been able to maintain any sort of happiness. It put me off life-coaching.

Hope you're having a good day.

 

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You sound depressed Conor. I recommend a change of scene even if it's just for a week. Go somewhere different and meet different people. Travel does wonders for me. Sometimes just driving 12 hours to San Francisco or 6 hours to Vancouver BC is enough to make me feel very much alive and renewed. Of course the trip back isn't as much fun but before that happens just going out and getting a change of perspective makes it all worth going.

Edited by Natelovesboardgames
changed Xonor to Conor
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Thank you, all for the responses. I'm around a bit right now, so I suppose I should mention them personally.

@Natelovesboardgames , you would be correct. I really enjoyed wandering down Ireland's backroads with my friends, not too long ago. I might try it again sometime.

@Dannigan and with mention to prior, that's part of the reason I'm pursuing nursing, to move to a new country with a fairly attractive skillset, I hope. But the inbetween? I've spent two years out of college to make enough to get back in. I can't run away from the fact that I'm going

@dwalk77 Hope you're alright.

Getting away sounds great.

But the image of my sister sitting on her windowsill, two stories up, crying, won't fucking leave my head. Talking to a therapist about this has resulted in me being advised to not take responsibilities for other's actions.

Everything - everything else - my own suicidal thoughts, my mother's crippling disease, the wariness certain other people display around me, the shallowness of my relationships - everything, all of that is fine, forgettable. I can move on, and ignore.

I'll stick to writing in the journal.

Above anything else, I wish to communicate (to you, stalwart fellows) to everyone that I'm just kind of a sad person. I was always like this, even when I was young (relatively speaking). I call as it is, with the sugar on top as needed as, and really can't stand to talk to people who mainly call me an asshole, or sad. Not interested.

I think, despite my contempt for it, I should get back into political volunteering. I like it a lot, it might well be due to my Dad being a pretty solid citizen in that regard.

My brain is scattered. Good night.

Xonor

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I can’t really think of much advice to add given that what has already been written is so good, but I do sincerely hope you manage to find a way to some happiness, however small. It sounds like you certainly have had to cope with a lot over the years and I would agree with your therapist - perhaps you need to invest some time in learning how to shoulder less of the burden of others’ actions. I recognise that is easier said than done however. I know you said self help books won’t help, but have you given them a go? You never know, there may be one or two out there that could be of benefit, and if not that’s totally fine too. Like you said, you can journal here, and you’ll have the support of this community too. I know what you mean about just feeling like you are a sad person, I used to feel the same, but the thing about emotions, they’re often tied to thoughts and certain neural pathways in the brain. The more we use those pathways, those connections, the stronger they become, and the more easily they are to use in the future. In other words, the more frequently we ‘indulge’ in sadness, the more normal and the easier sadness will come. But, the good news is the less we use them the weaker they become. If we can find ways to distract from the negative thoughts and feelings so that we can feel more positively, then eventually we will become better at that, and we can feel happiness that little bit more often. Distraction is not the same as escape though, which is why gaming and the habitual consumption of other media doesn’t improve the situation. I hope that helps in some way. You deserve to be happy. We all do. Best of luck though! We’re here for you. 

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