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BooksandTrees

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Hi Everyone,

I'm here to write about my thoughts, struggles, achievements, and any major things.  I don't think this will be a daily updated piece, but I do think I'll take the time to investigate my thoughts when events happen.  I'll be titling the entries by thoughts so if you have a specific thing you're struggling with then maybe I wrote about it.

My story is located here: My Gaming Addiction Story

Edited by Matt S
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7/21/2018 - Bedtime Anxiety

I noticed that I'll start to get tired at night and get a little anxious.  One of the hallmarks to gaming has always been staying up late at night with your friends.  It feels unnatural to fall asleep at like 10 PM when you used to stay up until 5 AM. 

I was watching TV until about 9PM tonight and got very tired, but it almost seemed like a waste to fall asleep that early.  I thought to myself "I should be doing something like a hobby or activity to keep me going.  I have so many more hours to be productive."  That's an interesting concept to think about.  Through the years of gaming I've almost made it a routine to continuously stretch my mental capacity to be productive in the late hours of the night and into the early hours of day.  That's not healthy.  As I think about this concept, I start to remember the foggy brain feeling I'd get during the day when I wasn't gaming.  The poor memory, the laziness, the lack of energy.  I think this is related.

Gamers often stretch and push their limits to gaming.  it should be natural to fall asleep at a certain time and understand when your mind, body, and spirit are tired.  I mention spirit because there are some days where you know you're healthy and mentally there, but your heart just isn't and you feel sad or spiritually drained.  Yoga has really helped me with that issue. But back to the main topic of limitations and exhaustion.  This isn't the case for all gamers, but I feel most gamers have this issue with anxiety at night where they are constantly thinking about the future, things they didn't do in real life, things they regret, things they need to do in the game, etc.  I used to think that if I went to bed I wouldn't level up my character fast enough.  That's not good.

This should be a welcomed time to pause, reflect, cancel the mental noise, and just go to bed and heal.  If you play up until you sleep, your mind is still processing thoughts from the game, in-game social interactions, and pretty much just keeping your mind stimulated.  You might fall asleep, but it's not the same quality sleep you'd have if you were completely offline for a few weeks and could finally just clear your mind and be at peace. This is something that I've been learning to adjust to at night.  That quiet.  Gaming removes all the quiet from your life if you're really into online gaming.  It's different now.  I hear nothing and see nothing except for what I did that day and who I am right now.  It makes me tired.  I'm not really used to being this tired at night.  I don't have time to constantly think about things and plan my routine while in bed.  I kind of just fall asleep.  I think that's how it is supposed to be.

This isn't my most well written post because I am very tired, but I just wanted to get this thought on here because I had an hour before bed and just wanted to play a game or something to be efficient with time.  Then I realized that's not a good idea.  It's time to let my body recharge so tomorrow can be a great day.

Matt

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7/22/2018 - Expectations on Hobbies, Lifestyle, and Happiness

Today I struggle with high expectations on myself to use my time "correctly".  It's a weekend and I'd love absolutely nothing more than to play video games for 12 hours today with my online friends and try to achieve goals with them in game to make me happy.  I just can't.

I can't do this because it hurts me in the long run.  I can't do that because it hurts my soul.  My dream is to find hobbies and a lifestyle that make me excited for now and the future.  My only issue is how much every new hobby is a ton of work.  After spending hours each day for 14 years playing games you could say I'm an expert at gaming. Think about it for a moment: When you see a job post somewhere and it says "Looking for Manager with 10-15 years experience".  That's a crazy thought.  I'm not even 30 and I have almost two decades of gaming experience where I would put in anywhere from 10 - 84 hours a week depending on what part of life I was at regarding free time.

I'm used to being excellent at stuff and I've carved out a lifestyle with expectations, goals, the ability to get knowledge and work hard to make my talent beneficial to me and my online friends.  I've made the decision to remove that from my life and it's a very hefty void.  I really miss my online friends.  I did the gaming for online activities for the most part.  It's not that I don't have any friends in real life - I do.  It's just that I don't get the same enjoyment sometimes because I'm not necessarily interested in the activities they want to do.  I miss seeing close friends, while participating in an activity I so thoroughly enjoy.

That's ok.

I have to keep reminding myself to say it's ok to feel this way.  I used to yell at myself, internally, for not being the best at a game.  If I died in Halo or let in a goal in NHL i'd scrutinize the moment over and over again until I learned how to never have it happen again.  Perfectionism.  Now I try to find new hobbies to not just pass time, but enjoy my time.  Enjoying my time does not include internally lamenting myself for not doing something correctly.  Enjoying my time means I'm making progress in an activity or multiple activities that I'll soon find out if I actually enjoy.  I've been learning how to write, draw, paint, build with my hands, read better books, watch tv shows, exercise, and more.  It's a lot.  I'm used to being so good at my video games because that's all I really did.  When you dedicate thousands of hours into one activity of course you're going to be stellar at it.  This means that during the first few months of trying new hobbies, it's ok to be bad or average at them.  You're opening up new pathways in your brain to think differently than you have in years.

I'm writing this entry because I was sitting at my desk very angry that I have a few spare hours and could be leveling up a character or winning a game.  I chose that I did not want to do that anymore.  Now I feel like I should either write, read, or something else.  I'm not used to *wanting* to do this.  It's like when you go to the gym and feel like it's a chore, but once you're there you actually enjoy how it makes you feel.  I'm telling myself and I'm telling anyone who reads this to give themselves a break.  It takes commitment, thought, and effort to get so good at something that you're able to take that hobby to the next level where your previous standard of gaming once was.

I'm not a great writer, yet, but I will be if I decide that I like it after giving myself the chance to write.  I've learned that I don't like doing woodworking projects after working on a few various projects.  I thought I'd be super interested and I wasn't.  I'm glad I gave myself the chance to learn.  Activities I do enjoy are talking about hockey, writing, sports, performing comedy and making people laugh, yoga, the gym, cooking, helping others, watching anime/cartoons/shows/movies, and reading certain books without filler and have good pace.

If you have any questions about activities you might want to try or how to deal with anxiety, feel free to post here and we can figure stuff out.

Matt

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7/26/2018 - Finding Control in Real Life Through Understanding

I spoke with my therapist the other day about being sick of doing things I don't want to do and having an issue saying "No" to people.  An example of this is I keep getting invited to generic cookouts where everyone asks the same things each time.  "How's your summer going?" "What have you been up to?" "What are you doing now?"  I'll also get invited to one-off events with people I might see between one and five times a year.

This really pisses me off for a few reasons and I hadn't been able to isolate my reasoning for anger until now. 

There's a few themes coming together in this story and they are all things that bother me:

  1. I keep getting asked to attend things I don't care about.
  2. The people who ask me to attend are people I see between one and five times per year.
  3. All of the generic questions I get asked are questions regarding my activities and my time spent between the last time I've seen these friends.
  4. I have trouble saying "No" because I am lonely and want to see these friends.
  5. I'm left with an empty, sad, and eventually angry feeling of loneliness.

It took me years to put together why these themes bother me so much, but if you just read them in this list format, you'll see it clear as day, and I'll be able to relate this with why video games are so appealing in the end.

Understanding Me

I'm angry because I'm lonely and want better friends.  I don't have any friends who share the same interests as me and want to hang out with me often.  I used to have a best friend who would always build, draw, watch anime, play video games, go on adventures, or just talk to.  This person understood me completely and I miss having a deep connection like that with somebody.  I'm also angry because I don't really do any activities I want.  I ask friends if they want to go to concerts, hang out at a bar, work on hobbies, call them to talk, etc. and rarely any ever come.  People are constantly doing things with their significant other or are busy with their own commitments.  This makes me sad and I just sit around all day because sometimes, even though I'm a confident person most of the time, I lack the desire to do something by myself because it makes me sad to be lonely.  I want to share my experiences with people when I do an activity.  

It depresses me and freezes me in place because I get very tired from work during the week that I can really only pursue hobbies on a weekend.  Now that I don't play video games, I really want to pursue my passion for writing fantasy and comedy stories.  I want to buckle down with a fresh mind and just explore my extremely active imagination.

Understanding The Process

I keep getting invited to attend a cookout, a birthday party, or some stupid event with a friend every weekend of the year with different people.  There are so many people asking me to attend these events, that I have to balance the friends.  I choose to equally see these people to keep everyone happy.  By doing this, I am not developing deeper friendships with anyone specific, which leaves most of these encounters to be generic hangouts with the questions I quoted above.

I attend these events because I am lonely.  I want friends and to be around people.  When I see people an equal amount of times to be fair to them, I'm not actually being fair to myself.  Every weekend is just a repeat process of the same questions followed by "we should do this again sometime".  Haven't we all heard this before?  Most ironic statement of modern mankind.  Seeing all of these people each weekend is doing a few bad things to me. The first is that I'm not doing many or any activities that I'm interested in doing.  I'm seeing these people because I'm lonely and "it's good to get out and see people".  So I see people each weekend to feel wanted and liked by others, but really it's just a placeholder or social masturbation.  The second is that I'm not doing activities I want to do.  I've found out that I'm worn out mentally during the week because of work.  I go to the gym or yoga, eat food, and have 1-2 hours before bed where I usually watch TV, read, or zone out before bed.  My weekends are all I have to write, create, explore life, and be myself.  I'm holding that all hostage when I'm seeing these people and doing things I just don't really give a shit about.  This is starting to destroy my soul.  The third is that I'm not seeing certain friends more than others.  This limits me from becoming closer with certain people and developing a deeper friendship that eventually makes that friend feel like family to me.  

I feel empty after seeing these friends because I didn't make our friendship deeper, I didn't do an activity I cared about, and I wasted my weekend and have to go back to work wishing I wrote a chapter of the book I'm writing.

Understanding The Effect

Anger.  Emptiness.  Jealousy.  Pure unhappiness. Worst of all is regret.  I end up regretting the whole weekend.  I regret seeing these friends and doing activities I don't care about.  It makes me feel like a sellout.  I sold out my desires and dreams of writing in order to go to some stupid folk festival with people because "I should go out more and haven't seen people enough".  Years of this compounding on itself has made me sick.  I thought about life and death.  If I died, would I actually feel like I lived a good life for myself? No.  I spent almost two decades playing games for 2-16 hours a day, made no close friends, and didn't pursue my passions.  

That sucks.

Understanding The Outcome

I'm more determined than ever now to fix this process and fix my life.  I have a great job right now and my life isn't terrible, but my soul is aching in ways I've never felt before.  I have so many ideas for things to write, make videos, make animations, take pictures, travel, cook creative things, etc.  Most of all, I want to connect with others and build a small community for myself to feel rooted.  I don't want to feel lost anymore.  I want passions and I want to share these passions with people.  I want to talk to people and not have them ask me how I've been doing or what I've been up to.  I want them to tell me how their projects are going, tell me jokes, and just shoot the shit naturally.  I want live action friendship, not reminiscent friendships.  You shouldn't have to reflect on the past with friends you've just met in the past two years.  You should be living life with them and dominating life for the purpose of passion, adventure, and love for life.  I want that conquest and I will make it happen and I will.  

Now that I am no longer playing video games and no longer saying yes out of loneliness, I will make time for myself to work on my hobbies and find my passions.  Through this dedication I will find the friends that mean the most to me and build real friendships instead of acquaintances.  Most importantly,  I'll find myself and love myself.  Something that I've wanted for my whole life.

Understanding Why It's Related to Video Games

I told you I'd bring it all back.  Here's how:

Video games, whether they're online or alone, offer you the ability to have full control.  For me, online gaming allowed me to pursue my virtual interests with people interested in the same thing.  It made our friendships seem live action and in the present.  We'd tell jokes, always want to see each other, and always hang out online.  It's very comforting and made me feel right.  These games, online or not, allowed me to explore and live a life I wanted.  I could achieve my goals and spend time doing it instead of spending time doing things I don't want to do.  

Unfortunately, this is superficial.  You'll rarely meet these friends in real life.  When you do, they're not always the way you had imagined because these friends you made online are created in your head.  Their personalities online are theirs, but your vision of them, mentally, is your vision.  It's different when you meet in person.  It's not the same and it feels fake.  Living your life in an online community is hollow.  The game might die out and fade.  You lose interest.  When those friends you made play MMORPGs they don't switch games.  Try getting a WoW, RuneScape, LoL, or Fortnite player to play something else.  Good luck.  You realize they only spend time with you because that game is their life.  Games should not be your life.

Understanding The Remedy

The remedy is to understand all of this and put together a solution.  The solution is to keep pursuing interests that make you happy.  Make life happy.  For those of you who are unhappy, if you are patient enough, put in the effort, and are a kind person to yourself and others who deserve kindness, then you will prevail.  Make that effort to make yourself happy and I swear people will gravitate towards you.  Your energy and warmth for your passions is like the sun.  People gravitate towards heat and spread away from the cold.  You'll attract friends and you'll learn to love yourself.  Once you love yourself, you won't keep thinking about regret of playing games.  You won't think about regret of having no real friends.  You'll be thinking about tomorrow when you wake up in the morning and get the chance to do what you love and be with the people you love.

Thank you for reading.

 

Matt

 

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8/1/2018 - Be Kind to Yourself: You are Incredible

Over the past week I have been struggling with anger more than I have in a very long time.  A series of personal events became a pathway for me to follow into darkness.  I felt myself wanting to be mean to others and just wanting to lash out.  I did not lash out, but I did pause for a moment to try and understand what my frustration was about.  I spoke with some friends and I spoke with my therapist and then spoke to myself.  What I found was that I was overwhelming myself with self-improvement, taking on too many things at once, and misinterpreting situations in life due to my frustrations.  I then went to my yoga class today and found something else out: I found my voice and its healing ability.

Issues with Self-Improvement

One of the issues I find with self-improvement is the constant analysis of my behaviors, lifestyle, and actions.  Like many of you, I am here on this forum because I'm trying to improve my life by quitting video games.  Also, like many of you, I'm not just improving my life by quitting video games, but I'm also improving my life by creating a better lifestyle for myself.  This causes me to constantly analyze every action, thought, and behavior that I perform on a daily basis.  This is good at first.  You can catch yourself falling into a trap or doing something you know isn't good for you.  The problem is that this requires an incredible amount of energy to carry on with.  Think about how you have to learn a new task.  Say you're driving down a new route to work and you have to think about every turn, the names of each road, the stop signs, and which lane you should be in for certain intersections.  This takes a lot of energy and often leaves you stressed out because of all the live action knowledge you're acquiring.  After several iterations of this it becomes acquired knowledge and you don't really think of it anymore.

Think about how many things in your daily routines were learned behaviors.  How you had to learn how to tie your shoes, cook breakfast properly, learn how to drive from scratch, and figure out what to wear and how long it took to learn all of these behaviors.  

Now pretend you're going to open up your mind and perform surgery because some of those paths aren't correct.  It's easy at first because you're focusing on one of them at a time.  Now try fixing all of them at once and then fixing other things you realize are not good.  It's overwhelming.  You start to lose sight of what you were originally trying to fix and worst of all, you're very strict on yourself because you want to recover.  It's like having a manager at work who expects you to learn something quickly, but is mean and yells at you when you take too long or mess up.  They might even fire you for messing up once.  That's how hard we are on ourselves with each and every little mistake we make.  That's abusive.

Issues with Taking on Too Much

We find ourselves trying to fix every behavior now because our lives seem to be in free fall after quitting video games.  "I need to eat healthier, wake up at this time, sleep at this time, exercise at this time, learn these 5 hobbies this week, talk to my friends again, make new friends, talk to my family again, start dating, and do this and that..." If we make all of these changes at once it must off-set the desire to play games and keep our minds off of them - WRONG!  Look how crazy that list is!  I see so many people, including myself, making these huge lists in their self-improvement diaries.  This is madness and completely unfair to yourself.

If you think back to when you first started playing video games and learning how to hold a controller, learning how to type, learning how to have extreme precision with your mouse hand, think about how frustrating it was at first.  People steamrolled us in any game we played and it was so difficult to be in tune with the game.  It took years for us to become good at gaming.  This same thing is going to apply to all of the new hobbies and lifestyles we pursue.  The expectations we put on ourselves to succeed with something new in comparison to how we succeed with video games is incredibly lopsided and unrealistic.  

Failure.  We don't like failing.  Nobody does.  Having too many things to accomplish leads to failure.  It's the simple analogy of someone throwing a ball at you to catch, and then having 35 people throw 35 balls at you to catch.  You drop the ball(s).  Look at all the hobbies and lifestyle changes I listed in the first paragraph: how many of you have at least half of those on the list of things you should be doing?  You drop the ball(s).  It's not fair or realistic to put the expectation of fulfilling all of these things when we're still trying to recover from a serious illness.

Worst of all, this is all exhausting.  When you're trying to learn something new your brain starts to open these pathways to learn each behavior.  It's like taking an exam at school.  It hurts to study too long and after the exam you just need to rest because you've been critically thinking for hours.  Replace the exam with trying to learn a sport, read new books, build, paint, sing, animating, but keep the frustration.  Instead of taking 1 exam, you're learning 5-10 hobbies.  That's so exhausting.  Now you're angry with yourself because you're tired.  Quitting gaming is already exhausting; now you're trying to learn new activities at the same time.  You're doubly exhausting yourself.  You need to let yourself heal and be patient with that healing process.

Your Healing Ability and How to Find it

I went to yoga class tonight with an avalanche of thoughts and discord in my head.  I haven't been making progress on any of the hobbies I've tried doing,  I've been working too much, work has been difficult because I'm working on a challenging project where I'm learning all day long and just not understanding it right away, I'm frustrated that I don't see friends as often as I'd like, and I just have no place to channel this anger.  All of this frustration leads to anger from the inside because I'm constantly yelling at myself and criticizing myself for being a failure.

Yoga is nice because you have to listen and can't think.  The exercises are challenging, but peaceful. You have an instructor who guides you into a trance almost.  At the beginning of class my instructor asked the class to focus on a word, a phrase, or a thought to help guide us through practice.  I thought of some stuff to give me strength for work or hobbies, but immediately stopped because my mind was full and just said nothing.  A huge word box of "NOTHING" appeared in my head and I was free.  I thought about nothing.

After an hour of this I was able to clear my mind.  I felt like my head weighed 50 lbs lighter than before.  It's at this moment during our meditation to close practice where I found my healing voice.  During the silence I came back to reality instead of resting and meditating with the class.  I told myself that I love myself, forgive myself for messing up or not understanding right away, and that I'm incredible.  I thought about a few great achievements in my life.  I am incredible.  It stuck.  Our class wrapped up and the night carried on, but I feel incredible.  I feel like someone dear to me gave me a hug, told me they loved me, and said I was incredible and that they're proud of me.  That is love.

Take the time to find something.  When people say meditate it doesn't mean just think about your problems.  That is just doing the same thing you've been doing but with your eyes closed.  Take the time to completely perform a routine that clears your mind.  Stop analyzing each step you're taking and just let yourself walk. Once you've been able to stop thinking about your issues (this is easy because you'll be happy again and carefree for a moment) take some time to be aware of that.  Be aware of how you feel in that very moment.  That's the peace you'll feel when you do give yourself forgiveness.  That's the feeling you'll continue to have when you fix your habits one at a time instead of all at once. 

When your crippling thoughts come back into your head, you'll always have that loving voice at the bottom that says they love you and forgive you.  That is your voice.  That will always be there now.  When you pile the thoughts on your head, it's going to be there to help push the crippling thoughts out.  Don't force yourself to treat yourself better. "Stop thinking bad thoughts! you're hurting yourself! Stop it!"  Look how mean that sounds.  You're yelling at yourself to stop yelling at yourself.  That's just terrible.  Clear your mind, open your mind, open your heart, and fill it with love for yourself.  You are incredible.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

 

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Hey Matt! Meditation seems to have had a huge impact on you, and that's great. Keep on doing it if it releases your mind.

I see you were struggling with taking too much at a time. If you are still struggling, this might help you. When I stopped gaming for the first time, my life was a complete chaos. I almost dropped college, my health was dancing on a string, I was alone, I had no other hobbies... But I decided to set up my priorities. I needed to improve my health habits, so I focused on that first. After two or three days, I decided that I needed to go to college and attend the classes, so I forced myself to go for the rest of the month. The first times it was a true test of will power, but every day was a little less hard. And then, when I didn't even had to think about going, I added more improvement.

What I'm trying to say is that prioritizing your needs is a huge help in this case when you want to improve everything. Just choose what do you want to focus on, keep doing it until you feel like it doesn't require too much effort, and then add the next thing on the list.

This technique will have multiple benefits: you will feel a sense of growth, because every time you master one more good habit, you will feel great about it, like acquiring a new skill; you won't feel overwhelmed by having to be perfect at everything since day one, you can have all the time you need to master that skill and get used to it, and then choose the next; the list acts like a reminder of your progress and makes you aware of your needs; and the first things that you will start to care about are the most urgent or important, so they will make a big difference once they are solved.

I hope this helps you in some way. I don't know if you already had this in mind, if that is the case, sorry for bursting here with useless info?

Edited by Peluconus
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  • 2 weeks later...

8/13/18 - Hatred

Today, more than ever, I find myself filled with hatred and turmoil.  I hate the fact that I can't play games.  I hate the fact that I'm so stressed out in life and I don't have any outlets to deal with the stress.  I hate that I'm crippled by my inability to move forward because I feel there are so many obstacles in my path.  I hate where I live, I'm frustrated at work, and I'm constantly let down by friends and family.  I just have no where I feel comfortable and that's the pain of quitting gaming.  Gaming was my place to dominate, release stress, feel comfortable, and just do something productive.

I'm angry.  I don't want to fucking pick up new hobbies all the time.  I don't enjoy many of the hobbies I've tried.  I miss competition.  I miss doing things at a high level and winning.  If I play a sport there's always someone who has played for like 20 years and it's just impossible to find my groove.  I was such an expert gamer that I had that edge.  Now I have to pick up from the beginning.  I work so much during the week that I'm so damn burnt out.  I get angry when i get home because I can't just lay down and watch TV or game.  When I'm pissed off, tired, or frustrated I really don't have the patience to learn something new.  I don't relax and change my mood when I have to be a novice at something.  That just breeds more frustration.  Maybe I'm just not in the right mindset right now to try something new.  Maybe I need something more vigorous to do in my spare time until I get this rage out of my system. 

I'm not always angry.  It's just that I sit here at work and am frustrated with some of the projects I'm doing.  I'm proud of my job, but everyone is allowed to be stressed at work.  I then come home and it's just a fucking battle.  Everyone in my house is playing video games except for me.  It really bothers me.  I don't get any satisfaction out of "going for a run" or "kayaking".  There's not point in doing those exercises.  When I gamed I felt a purpose to win something.  I don't win at running.  Running or exercising isn't a goal of mine.  I have a trainer at the gym who says I can lift more and do more because I am strong and agile, but I don't.  She asks why I don't and I say because I don't care.  Why should I care?  What am I training for?  "Happiness" they say.  Fuck that.  That's so vague.  I just want to compete and win something that means something to me.  I guess I am being impatient because I don't want to spend the next 5 years learning something to go from novice to amateur when I was already an expert gamer.  

Then there's the hate side of me that stands by my quitting gaming.  I hate all gamers.  I think most people in the gaming community are such assholes.  They take their anger out on others, are incredibly toxic, don't fix their life problems, most of them are pathetic and can't do anything outside the gaming world, and they are just miserable.

Then there's the side of me who sees both of those people inside of me.  I know I can be amazing in real life.  I've proven it before, but I just want to unload on something like a boxing bag for like 30 minutes and scream at it.  I'm so full of this physical and mental tension - it's pouring out of my mind!  I want to get out of my house and just FEEL ALIVE!!! I DON'T FUCKING FEEL ALIVE AT ALL!!! I go to work, feel bored and like a DRONE and then just DO NOTHING AT HOME LIKE AN ASSHOLE!!

"Stop being so hard on yourself"

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU DO THAT??????? I'm so god damn brain dead after work that I don't want to do anything.  My job is hard.  It's a high level engineering position.  I come home and my brain can't process anything at all.  I just sleep right away for an hour or two, eat dinner, and find myself sitting there with 1-2 hours before I go to bed and repeat the process.  I can't fucking take it anymore.  I hate this.  I don't feel alive, I don't feel myself.

I have so much animosity, hatred, anxiety, and anger inside of me that I can't peacefully learn a new hobby right now.  

The only thing I care about doing is writing a cartoon, book, and talking hockey.  I also want to compete in something high level and just feel alive.  I want to destroy others in team competitions and just feel great that I achieved a high level in something again.  I just can't find a sport or league for it.  Beer league hockey is full of morons who are either angry and want to hurt you or are there for fun and don't take it seriously.  It's not a good place for my issues. 

All of this leaves me lazily sitting here alone waiting for something.  I don't want to try anything new because I just feel like it's going to take forever to learn.  I don't want to try anything at all.  I feel just as pathetic as the people I hate so much, which makes me hate myself.  I get angry at people who are happy.  It sickens me sometimes that I can't have that energy.  My hatred bogs me down like I'm carrying cinder blocks all day long.  It's not a good attitude to have.  I just have a hard time taking that step forward.

 

Matt

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This sounds both like a natural part of the process and a miserable effing time.

I think you're getting to the core of the problem with gaming though: it's so much more attractive than the real world because it's so immediate.

Real life takes time, whether it's getting good at something competitive or whether it's simply accomplishing life goals (you might find the book "Mastery" interesting). You need deliberate practice, day after day, year after year, to accomplish these things. There are plateaus before you see significant improvement and there are setbacks. Etc.

Gaming is fast. Spend a few days learning the game, practicing it a lot and you're already better than a lot of people. Spend a few months practicing, reading up on strategies and techniques, watching pros do it, etc, and you'll be one of the top players. And you don't even need to be at the top. Most games match you up with people of similar "level" so you can start crushing people early on as you learn. And even if you don't play competitive games, single-player games get you hooked in by having you fulfill easy "quests" first and then moving to more and more challenging things as you go on. 

Games provide fast returns on investment and give you a sense of achievement. Life seems boring by comparison.

But the reason we're all on this forum is because we don't want the virtual achievements any more. We want to go and achieve things in the real world. And that takes time and effort, without immediate results. And yeah... that's the hardest part about quitting games.

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On 8/14/2018 at 12:30 AM, karabas said:

We want to go and achieve things in the real world. And that takes time and effort, without immediate results. And yeah... that's the hardest part about quitting games.

That's the big thing.  I think learning patience is the key here.  I appreciate the words.  I'm doing better today.  I went out for drinks with my coworkers and told a bunch of funny stories.  Then I did some yoga today and talked some more.  I think I'm just someone who is holding so much inside of me that I need to find ways to express myself. I'm worrying about each second of the day not fulfilling these promises and I think that makes the days go by so painfully, and so quickly too.  I look back at July like where the hell did that go? Unreal.

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Thanks Phoenix.  It's funny you mention that.  I'm also considering boxing or kickboxing.  I just want to feel alive and feel like a man.  I want to express myself physically, socially, and mentally.  But like Karabas is saying I need that patience.  I think I'm going to develop a strategy for calming myself down when I work myself up that quickly.  Understanding my body is going to be paramount here.  It would be nice to recognize the different frustrations or emotions I'm feeling and just come up with potential ways to deal with it.

I'm sorry to hear about your setbacks recently, Phoenix.  Like you said, you're not alone either.  But just remember this feeling right now.  Notice how your true self is disappointed.  This doesn't mean you should scold yourself for these feelings or your actions, but set yourself aside and recognize how you feel.  You don't like what you did and you recognize you did it.  Take note of these emotions, give yourself a hug, and move forward.  No team wins every game of the year, but they're remembered for good and bad moments.  Bad moments just lead to good ones eventually through practice.  We got this man.

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It's important to kind of interact with yourself as you would with a close friend.  Pretend I came to you with some terrible news after doing so well for 60 days.  You wouldn't swear at me and make me feel bad for messing up once in 60 days right?  Same thing with yourself.  You're the most important person in the world to yourself and you need to treat yourself that way.  Discipline can be tough.  If you mess up at work because you are lazy for example (not saying you are) then that's the time to say ok, I need to not be lazy.  But if you mess up because you were emotionally distraught, going through a lot, and struggling with the debilitating illness of addiction, then that's ok.  Don't scorn about it and scold yourself.  This is the support you need.  Give yourself a metaphoric hug and say it's ok.  You got this.  This is your time to pick yourself up because you are getting to know your True Self and you can get through anything you put your mind towards.  Be proud of yourself, empathetic with yourself, and true to yourself.  But don't over analyze.  

I wouldn't make another journal.  Honestly, this journal you have here is enough awareness for yourself.  Look at the issues you're having and writing about.  I think that's more than enough information for yourself.  Now it's time to compile that information while you're recording it.  What are your major themes?  You get stressed by your ex girlfriend, you don't like that you drink or do drugs at times, and you feel unfulfilled at work.  If a major decision enters your life like sleeping with your ex girlfriend, then ask how this will impact your true feelings.  If your friend asks which restaurant to eat at, just choose one and don't go nuts over it.  It's when you sit and over analyze your decisions is when you start going crazy and that's when you get angry and the most stressed.  Keep lightly exercising, venting your emotions through conversation, and expressing yourself.  The more you let go the further you'll go.

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8/22/2018 - How Do I Keep Trying?

I think my issue is more than gaming addiction and I don't think I'm addicted to gaming.  I don't think I enjoy my everyday life.  I feel lifeless and lacking passion.  I don't wake up in the morning with that fire in my belly and impetus on my heart that propels me to achieve in life.  There's no adventure for me.  There's no point. I quit gaming so I could just do better at work and I'm not enjoying life at all.  I don't know what gives me joy in life.  I don't know how to find it.

The reason I can't stop thinking about video games is because they've been the only thing in my life that makes me feel alive.  I want to feel alive.  I come home from work and I'm so fucking tired! I'M SO FUCKING TIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would feel better after doing some physical exertion, but I don't want to go to the fucking gym after work.  What's the fucking point?  I'm not training for anything.  I need goals, man.  I don't think it's healthy in the long run to just get pissed off at life and just go to the gym to work out my frustrations and repeat the process.  That's not how you're supposed to fucking live life.  That's a joke. Video games gave me these fucking goals to achieve and train for.  You need to be this level to equip this weapon, I guess I'll train!  That gave me a purpose.  Why would I want to drive somewhere after work and just put in all this time?  It just feels like more work.  Oh, go rock climbing. Why?  What's the point?

I want to write my cartoon and book so badly and I just don't have the energy or ability to write until like 9 PM where I'm not angry anymore.  Then I just get too angry to fall asleep and need to turn to other bad habits to fall asleep.  This is so frustrating.  I have so much anger and rage inside me and I suppress it all so I don't have to have fun.

Things I Want To Do In No Order:

  1. Tell jokes and make people laugh
  2. Dance or go to dance clubs/groups
  3. Work out
  4. Trail Walks
  5. Rock climbing maybe?  I liked it, but idk how much I liked it.
  6. Go to Concerts
  7. Play Lacrosse and Hockey again
  8. Go to the gym
  9. Hockey Podcast
  10. Write my Cartoon
    1. Write
    2. Animate
    3. Voice Act
    4. Music
    5. Production and marketing
  11. Write my book
  12. Have more social friends
  13. Travel and go on adventures
  14. Yoga

How do I get the energy and motivation to do these things?  I'm not having fun in life and it's pissing me off.

Matt

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  • 3 weeks later...

I need help. I took a vacation to destress from work and all I did was play games. I have all these ideas for this I want to do, but I can't stop gaming. I feel so terrible and don't know what to do. I went 3 months without it and played for 16 hours a day for 2 weeks. I just want to game more than anything in the world. Nothing makes me feel this happy. 

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9/9/2018 - Forgiveness and Listening

The past two weeks I have failed myself and relapsed very hard.  It started by watching a TV show for 8 hour binge sessions that reminded me of playing games.  I then just played games and watched TV.  Then I took a 1 week vacation and played games for most of it.  I got so upset that I cried and screamed.  I then laid down in my bed, trembling as I wallowed in self defeat and anguish.  I wrote the last post and then went to a dark place.  I followed this by playing another 4 hours of games.

I played the game again because I was so angry and wanted to keep beating myself up and just sit there in that cesspool.  I lost every game of Overwatch I played during those 4 hours.  I uninstalled the game.

I sat there for a while listening to music and thinking about how I'm not living to my fullest and being upset about it.  Life is scary.  Now that I don't have college anymore I find it scary that I just go to work and come home.  I can't handle that pace of life without something to chase after.  This shouldn't be scary, though.  I should be excited to keep pursuing new interests and dating.  I'm just afraid to be comfortable in life or maybe I'm just afraid of not having a deadline.  It's like when you can play video games 5 hours a week during weekdays because of work, but once the weekend comes I can't help but play games for the entire day because of a lack of commitments and activities.  If I play a game at the start of the day I can't stop.

I was berating myself and screaming at myself for hours today because of this.  WHY?  It's time to listen to myself.  I can't allow myself to sit here in self defeat.  This isn't good.  I need to be my best friend.  I need love right now.  I want someone to be there for me and make sure I'm ok.  Since most people are fucking losers and don't care about anyone except themselves, I find that I need to be my best friend.  I need to love myself more than anyone ever could because I know nobody ever will love me like I want to be loved.  

This is my life.  I need to take control.  If I have nothing to do, I can't panic about what I'm doing or not doing.  I need to just relax.  Work on things one at a time and don't panic and play games because I know they're bad.  I thought maybe I wasn't addicted to games and could just balance it.  100 hours later I know I'm addicted.  It took a few relapses and maybe one day I'll relapse again, but I know I'll be there for myself.  Life doesn't have to be scary.  I can enjoy it.  

 

Matt

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Thanks.

 

I think I just had a difficult summer and didn't know how to cope with the workload I received.  I did not like it at all. Video games kind of gave me an injection of life before a dose of frustration.  I'm gonna try to stop solving all my problems right away and just be more patient.  I think it will help with anxiety.  I appreciate the kind words.  Not many people care that I am depressed so I appreciate it.  I am just trying to keep living and being strong and not beat myself up so much.

 

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I feel a little better today.  I just focused on work and talking to family and friends.  I realized that I just was so overworked this summer on top of being burnt out from graduate school and life itself.  The issue is that I wanted to live and enjoy life a little more, while neglecting the need for restorative activities and behaviors.  Instead, I was aggressively trying to push a new life and hobbies onto myself.

The new approach I'm going to talk to my therapist about is just having peace of mind and being restorative and mindful of what my emotions and feelings desire.  I think through this I'll find more balance.  I feel like I'd go on a binge of anything that I enjoyed because I felt empty and sad.  I'd binge eat food (gained 20 lbs this summer), video games (go on 16 hour benders), television (watched 100 episodes of a 1 hour show in 3 weeks), and complain the rest of the time.  It's hard to pursue balance and activities sometimes.  I say I have no time, but I'd be doing all of these things.  It turns out I was sacrificing sleep and nutrition to do these things.  On top of all of this I was just beating myself up for being unhappy and a failure.  

I'm trying to be proud of myself.  Something I'm proud of is not turning out to be a failure.  I have a very rewarding and challenging job that barely anyone else could ever dream of doing.  

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Today was a great day for learning.  I realized that I'm being a little too ambitious with this cartoon I wanted to make.  That takes dozens of people and several months to produce.  Those people went to college full time and got degrees.  I am alone and did none of that.  I can't be that unrealistic.  

 

I decided to start my second option of creating a podcast about hockey and the NHL.  I really enjoy hockey and study it all day long.  I love to talk and think the two could gel together really well.  I look at today as a positive.  I've been trying to do things to make my life easier for myself.  I am not hitting snooze anymore.  I set my alarm clock across the room.  I've been much less depressed because of it.  I'm also cooking all my meals again and doing yoga.  

I'm going to keep working on this podcast and see if I can get any viewers or donations and see how I can turn this into something good for myself.

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I ordered my equipment for the podcast and created all my social media profiles. I just need to trademark it and begin recording and producing the show!  I am so excited.  I come home excited now and am eager to get things rolling.  I also stayed strong this weekend and set alarms for myself to wake up at 8 Am instead of noon.  The weekend feels longer to me. I feel more refreshed and happier.  These are big steps for me as I just felt so unbalanced. 

 

I created a new gym routine as well and want to go 3 days per week.  I currently plan to go on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

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I got my equipment today.  I caught a cold, but I really can't wait to be putting work towards this podcast.  Work has been difficult for me, but I am trying to relax and be in a good place mentally.  I don't think I am, but I am trying.   My posts aren't as long as they were before, but I just feel exhausted mentally and spiritually. I'm trying to be less dramatic and just enjoy life a bit.

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