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BooksandTrees

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Dear @BooksandTrees

you are always looking for help from other people, sounds like. You wish your mother was different, you wish people in general acted differently. You are fighting reality. If you don't accept the state of the world and that each and every of us is responsible, that no one is coming to the rescue and that's normal, things will only get worse and I really don't wish that on you. Do you try to control those negative thoughts? Do you try to evaluate whether whatever you're thinking is accurate and fair and realistic? Your ideas about how relationships should be are imho very distorted. You're always looking for the easy way, someone else to do the problem solving for you, someone else to blame. The only way there is is that of accepting that you are in control of your fate, no one else. This world is different for each person because of the beliefs they hold for it. What are you doing to help yourself? Are you spending the majority of your resources to help yourself? Stop trying to escape the process, just do what needs to be done. Do your cartoon stuff and whatever else is on your list, consistently. Push yourself to do it, it'll not come naturally, we're used to getting rewards for sitting on our asses all day, but you gotta realize the focus of your days should be the progress you achieve, the main thing should be that. Do you have a schedule? Do you remind yourself of your purpose? Just because you're gamefree for weeks doesn't mean your process is finished. You need the structure to lean on, the enforced routine that includes doing something productive every day, to carry you out of this pit. You're freaking out, and I absolutely understand that cause I experience those things too, but the only way out is to keep moving on with your goals and routines.

And stop having illusions that you being at home or being on your own will change much. That's just you postponing working on yourself, that's all there is to it. There are never perfect circumstances. If people get out of poverty and run away from Iraq wars for a better life, we have it hella easy over here in the Western world. Nothing is stopping you, it's not your mom or your circumstances. It's you, you're fighting the hard work it requires to get out of this state, but there's no other way out.

Just look at your own journal entries and see where and when you were the most stable. It's when you did something that mattered, your goals. 

You know what's easy? Sitting on your computer all day and pretending everything is fine. Lots of people do it, cause it's hella easy. Do you want to be like that? Do you want it easy? Because our demons are still there when we shut down the computer anyway. 

There's either the easy way, which we've all been doing for years, or the right way.

Accept that, and make your choice and stick with it. 

With the best of intentions,

Fawn.

Edited by fawn_xoxo
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25 minutes ago, fawn_xoxo said:

Dear @BooksandTrees

you are always looking for help from other people, sounds like. You wish your mother was different, you wish people in general acted differently. You are fighting reality. If you don't accept the state of the world and that each and every of us is responsible, that no one is coming to the rescue and that's normal, things will only get worse and I really don't wish that on you. Do you try to control those negative thoughts? Do you try to evaluate whether whatever you're thinking is accurate and fair and realistic? Your ideas about how relationships should be are imho very distorted. You're always looking for the easy way, someone else to do the problem solving for you, someone else to blame. The only way there is is that of accepting that you are in control of your fate, no one else. This world is different for each person because of the beliefs they hold for it. What are you doing to help yourself? Are you spending the majority of your resources to help yourself? Stop trying to escape the process, just do what needs to be done. Do your cartoon stuff and whatever else is on your list, consistently. Push yourself to do it, it'll not come naturally, we're used to getting rewards for sitting on our asses all day, but you gotta realize the focus of your days should be the progress you achieve, the main thing should be that. Do you have a schedule? Do you remind yourself of your purpose? Just because you're gamefree for weeks doesn't mean your process is finished. You need the structure to lean on, the enforced routine that includes doing something productive every day, to carry you out of this pit. You're freaking out, and I absolutely understand that cause I experience those things too, but the only way out is to keep moving on with your goals and routines.

And stop having illusions that you being at home or being on your own will change much. That's just you postponing working on yourself, that's all there is to it. There are never perfect circumstances. If people get out of poverty and run away from Iraq wars for a better life, we have it hella easy over here in the Western world. Nothing is stopping you, it's not your mom or your circumstances. It's you, you're fighting the hard work it requires to get out of this state, but there's no other way out.

Just look at your own journal entries and see where and when you were the most stable. It's when you did something that mattered, your goals. 

You know what's easy? Sitting on your computer all day and pretending everything is fine. Lots of people do it, cause it's hella easy. Do you want to be like that? Do you want it easy? Because our demons are still there when we shut down the computer anyway. 

There's either the easy way, which we've all been doing for years, or the right way.

Accept that, and make your choice and stick with it. 

With the best of intentions,

Fawn.

Thank you. I think I just have these bad days where my mind explodes on me. I start to hate myself more than words can imagine. Then I look to turn that hate outward on other people. I'm not a good person I don't think. 

I just don't really understand how to stick with the process. I have a schedule for how my week is planned and individual schedules for my projects. I just keep hearing that I haven't scheduled fun into my schedule and I get very angry at my mom for saying that. I get very angry when I'm not working on my goals and it takes so much effort sometimes to start. I keep questioning myself instead of trusting myself and others. 

I keep hiding these issues inside of porn. I think I watched it 6 times last night. I spent all of today angry and then went rock climbing, had fun with friends, and called my mom on the way home. She bothered me minorly and then I ignored her the rest of the night and then yelled at her for never talking to me. I made her cry for 2 hours after I left the room. I've never felt so low in my life. I can't handle what I'm becoming. 

I don't think I'm really blaming her but more desperately seeking her help because I feel so lost. 

I'll try to remind myself of my purpose for quitting work, games and porn. I'll also remind myself that I don't hate my mom and don't want to carry hate anymore. I'm drowning in it and it's pure evil. 

Anyhow, thanks for the words and thoughts. 

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4 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

I just don't really understand how to stick with the process. I have a schedule for how my week is planned and individual schedules for my projects. I just keep hearing that I haven't scheduled fun into my schedule and I get very angry at my mom for saying that. I get very angry when I'm not working on my goals and it takes so much effort sometimes to start. I keep questioning myself instead of trusting myself and others. 

I think it would help to add this schedule here in your journal as a start, and every time you come and write here make sure to evaluate whether you did what you had planned to do, and how it went and why it went that way, be it good or bad. Include that critical thinking of yours in the process as a first step.

On the anger, that's because you feel deeply, and I also feel very deeply. We need to evaluate where the feelings come from, what are the words we say to ourselves that create that emotion, and then see if it's accurate. Then we need to remind ourselves that emotions are instinctive, like when the doctor pokes the knee and it goes up in reflex. It has a purpose for existing, but it's not a criterion. Yes, it's hard to stick with the schedule, most of us are used to chaos, especially myself. But push yourself even if it feels uncomfortable at first. We need to build the discipline is all.

And even though I understand where your mom is coming from, you decide what's fun for you. Listen to people's words, but go the extra mile and evaluate what they're telling you, ideally before you react to it. But even after, I'd say you include fun in your schedule just fine. Some people are happier being busy, some people are happier being laid back. Think for yourself and decide based on you. This is the whole point of the process, self discovery and betterment.

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I'm posting my schedule below. I'm trying to be able to focus on my emotions and where I want to go in life, but being at home is making it difficult. I try to reason with my mom and explain my issues, but she just acts so asinine and it's good for 1 week and bad for 1 week. It's making it difficult because if my environment is bad then my production is bad.

First I want to recap the past few years of my life to better understand myself so I stop moving backwards. I think moving home was a step backwards. I wanted to post it here to help clear my thoughts up and show other people a timeline since they've been so kind in helping me over the past few months.

I currently want to move out of my home because I just see that my mom and I argue too much and it is going nowhere. I also don't like my career so far.

Recap of events to clear my thoughts, understand negative thoughts, and help plan my future:

  • 2008 My dad moves out. 2009 I get involved in a fake relationship on Runescape.
  • 2010 I fail out of college.
  • 2011 I stop talking to my dad after he is an asshole to me and my mom.
  • 2012 I struggle to stay in college and am battling hard to even find a reason to stay in engineering school.
  • 2013 I finally move out of my mom's house into an apartment. I can't take the dorms anymore and I hate living at home.
  • June 1st 2014 I get my first internship as a civil engineer. I did not like any of the transportation, traffic, civil, or survey work. I only liked structural.
  • December 2014 I intern with them again as a structural engineer intern. It went well, but I hated the commute into the city because it was so taxing on my mental wellbeing
  • June 1st 2015 I start full time as an engineer at the same company. I was given a decent work load. Company was decent. I am living alone in my apartment.
  • September 2015 I enroll in the Master's Degree program for structural engineering at the advice of my boss.
  • February 2016 I start to hate my commute but also hate where I lived. A chinese family moved above my apartment and their children could not adjust to the timezone difference. They spent 3 months running around and I hated the sound of someone above me.
  • May 2016 I got a beautiful apartment on a lake with 2 friends. My commute got worse because of it
  • December 2016 two of my coworkers commit suicide, I get scared because I was depressed and hated my job. I call a therapist
  • February 2017 I start thinking of my cartoon Idea
  • June 2017 I reach a point of frustration where my company had nothing to work on. I wasn't working towards anything. I was just looking for projects to spend my time on so I could charge my 40 hours without charging to overhead
  • July 2017 I get a job 10 minutes from my house at a better firm, but for less pay.
  • August 2017 two of my bosses fuck me over on two different projects. I want to quit.
  • April 2018 I defend myself to multiple bosses and gain support from my entire company. I instantly get placed on the largest projects with the best middle managers and work is more enjoyable.
  • May 2018 I get burned out from the argument with my bosses and the stress of the past few months. I also finish a very difficult masters degree with a 4.0 GPA. I get told my company doesn't care about my master's degree and won't give me a raise.
  • July 2018 the project I'm working on is so stressful that there's a submission to the state every week and I have to work on weekends and until midnight some nights to get it done. I would be the only person in the office doing this. I sacrificed my summer doing this and not doing anything fun. I also made my first GameQuitters post.
  • September 2018 I can't find new hobbies and the workload from work is killing me. I make my first relapse with gaming after not gaming from April 2018 to September 2018. I try to play in moderation, but quickly just play 18 hours per day and get sick because I don't want to go to work again and I love the escapism.
  • October 2018 I breakdown and quit gaming fully. My roommate situation dwindles because one of them is moving out. He hated his job and just played video games all day. He could not afford to live with me anymore and had to move out. It was not a friendly environment in the apartment from June until October because of this. I was very frustrated about my job, he was frustrated about his job, and we were both frustrated with our lives outside of work. We both had different forms of depression and anger issues. Our 3rd roommate was  neutral, but understanding to the degree required of him. For the most part, he just played games and kept to himself. I think I leaned on him a lot for advice and he had his own issues and didn't want to help others when he didn't have the strength to help himself either.
  • November 2018 my roommate moves out. I make the decision to move home with my mom to save for a house.
  • December 2018 I move home. I am very burnt out from work. That huge project is finally submitted. One of my other bosses (different from the other two who tried to submarine me) chooses to target me in his anger. I get reprimanded for talking, but complimented for my ability to get projects done incredibly under budget. It makes me angry because my boss was just picking on me when he had a bad day and then forgot about it. I didn't forget about it. I wanted to quit after getting yelled at FOR HELPING THE MARKETING TEAM SET UP A POPCORN MACHINE.
  • January 2019-March 2019 I get into periodic arguments with my mother which are very explosive and emotional.
  • April 2019 I go on a vacation with a girl I thought I liked. It turns into a disaster. I get angry that I wasted 5 vacation days. I start to hate work more and more. The commute is killing me. I find a few apartments to rent because I can't live at home anymore. My mom and I can't stop arguing. She is trying to pick fights with me and won't communicate. I have a feeling it is to get her old roommate back in with her because she thinks he is going to be homeless. 
  • May 2019 We reach an understanding about my displeasure with my company and wanting to leave. I only like my immediate coworkers, the work is boring and not rewarding and I am not understood by my upper management. I also write my first cartoon script.
  • Today I am home. I'm making progress on my cartoon and projects. But Not this week because I keep getting into massive fights with my mom. She's getting more stressed out with her job, her old roommate potentially being homeless, and a surgery she has. She can't handle talking to me about my problems, but wants to help. When she tries to help she either backs out of the conversation entirely or switches after what I say to start talking about her issues. I get angry that she's not helping me so I stop talking. She then starts crying often.

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Wow... just wow... here is what happened after the last time I was in summer school and before I was to attend one last time for like 11 years too late, but same timeline as you mostly.

  • September 2007 - Kim Possible ends, Big Bang Theory begins; I moved to Salem, Oregon and started sixth grade
  • 2008 - transitioned middle schools over the summer and education at the time was just pointless... the recession had affected my family big time in a long run for ten years
  • 2009 - all my 3 grandpas died and we moved back to Kirkland, Washington
  • 2010 - nothing really happened after the move... we got another dog
  • 2011 - I started high school
  • 2012 - I grew out of the transition program and moved on to the resource program, which is good
  • 2013 - I started a blog shortly after the vacation when we went down the West Coast of America and back up again
  • June 13, 2014 - I graduated from high school
  • 2014-15 school year - 13th grade
  • September 2015 - I started college
  • October 4, 2015 - my dog Dakota died the day after my cousin got married
  • November 8, 2016 - one year later, that last minute of the day and the first few minutes of the very next day changed my life FOREVER!!! I was eternally grateful that I would never forget a new beginning of a long 49-year road of adulthood
  • January 11, 2018 - still a year later, my other dog Zellie died
  • June 18, 2018 - we finally grew out of the government fool cult (for now...)
  • March 2019 - Mom had a new job as a paraeducator and we'd been sucked into the government fool cult (AGAIN?! ARGH!!! I can't wait until she's 65 and retiring.)
  • May 2019 - Big Bang Theory ends; my sister comes back from uni after nearly nine months of being away
  • Today - I am busy with school and I have like two weeks and a day left to graduate.

That's my story.

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It's difficult to sleep tonight. My mom bothered me again making little statements to try and piss me off. Just statements where she tried to act intimidating and at the end ask when I planned on fixing our relationship. She's insane and I can't take it. She belittles me and tries to hurt my feelings, then apologize, then argue, then won't listen, then believes everyone is attacking her. She starts saying how she hates when I give her advice because she wants to rant and not hear anything from me. So I tell her my opinion and she yells. I haven't given her my opinion in 4 months now but she's telling me how much progress she made in the past 3 days since we haven't talked. It's all stuff I suggested to her and she's claiming she did it on her own. 

She then tries giving me a hug and saying I hold on to anger too much. She is going through too many emotional stages for me to handle. I can't emotionally handle going from angry defensive to calmly open and warm. I also can't forgive her because she never listens. She's suffocating to be around and then cries to make me feel guilty. She laughs at my depression because hers is worse and she tries the tough guy approach on me. 

If you try the tough guy approach on me I'm going to get angry at you. Just do a fucking calm approach where you clearly state your opinion and how you came to that conclusion. 

I'm disappointed really. I don't have a clear place to think. I don't have a calm environment. I'm just here and hate it every 3 to 5 days because of something stupid she's doing. I can't even write my cartoon. I know ruminating in negative thoughts is bad. I have questioned why I do it and it's because i hate my environment. I didn't like my old roommates or the apartment I had befor living with them. I hated the dorms and hated my home. I hated my dad's home. I want a nice place for myself and it's so expensive. 

I quit my job because I was bored there, but it was worse at home because being at home made me want to give up on life. I'm miserable here. I'm so embarrassed to ask my job for my job back. But I miss my coworkers. I saw them on Wednesday and I felt good. But I felt like an outcast. They took a company photo without me in it. People were just focused on climbing and I learned which ones wanted to talk to me and which didn't. I also learned none of them care about my problems. I just feel like I need a lot of help solving my problems because I'm so desperate. 

After thinking about my list above it's clear that i hated being home and hated my last job. I felt like they didn't appreciate me much. But I think I constantly seek self validation. I want to impress my bosses due to a deep seeded pain of never impressing my dad or coach. My self esteem is low. 

I'm having trouble working on that here at home because my emotions keep going from good to bad to worse to bad to worse to bad to good. 

I thought I was going to get fired but I was doing a good job. It's annoying. I just wanted attention because my mom was making me feel sad and I left work as this petty way of getting them to show affection for me. Like when someone asks what's wrong and you say nothing but want them to keep asking. 

What I'm going to do is go on a vacation alone. I need time away from everything to think. I'll still journal. But I need to be away from home. 

After that I believe I'll start interviewing again and ask to go back to my old job. I'll see if I can change my mindset. I either need to not seek self validation or find an office culture that rewards people the right way and don't fuck you over. 

I miss my independence and want to live alone but I'm not ready to buy a home yet. I want to experience a cool bachelor pad. Not for sleeping around but just to have my own space again. I really took it for granted. 

I want to love my mom again but she's so irrational that I'm completely out of it right now. 

I'll work on my hobbies outside of work and just practice discipline but also lower my expectations for success. I push too little and dream too big.  It's a bad combination.

It's an hour later and I can't stop thinking about how much I hate my mom right now. I haven't been this angry in a decade. I'm irate.

I've been awake over 24 hours out of pure hatred. I don't know what to say anymore. 

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6 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I think I constantly seek self validation. I want to impress my bosses due to a deep seeded pain of never impressing my dad or coach. My self esteem is low. 

Yes, most of us start life like that. And a lot of people continue like that, even live life based on what other people like, just so they can get their approval. Did you even read the Self esteem book?

 

6 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I also can't forgive her because she never listens. She's suffocating to be around and then cries to make me feel guilty. She laughs at my depression because hers is worse and she tries the tough guy approach on me.  If you try the tough guy approach on me I'm going to get angry at you. Just do a fucking calm approach where you clearly state your opinion and how you came to that conclusion. 

I'm disappointed really. I don't have a clear place to think. I don't have a calm environment. 

6 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I just wanted attention because my mom was making me feel sad

I think you're continuing the cycle still, with the situation with your mom. Why do you have to keep excusing yourself as if whatever you do it's someone else's fault? Your mom's, your dad's, your employers'.. You can limit your interactions with people if you consider them a bad influence, but if you continue being around people who give you bad emotions, that's your responsibility, not theirs. If I hang out with a guy who wants to sexually abuse me, and I know it, it's my responsibility that I am jeopardizing my safety. So if you think all these people are a bad influence, then put distance between you and them. You can establish a clear routine of things that serve you and only do those things. You have the choice to socialize with people as little or much as you like. 

But I think that's not the problem. After all, you can just ignore the people that don't offer anything to you and still reap the benefits they offer you, like a freaking free room and food? But no, you have demands from them. Why? Do they owe you to be the type of person you want them to be? Are you the person other people want you to be? What sort of unhealthy perspective is this?!
 

6 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I will work on my hobbies outside of work and just practice discipline but also lower my expectations for success. I push too little and dream too big.  It's a bad combination.

I'll ask you this, who is in control of your schedule?

Who is in control of your success?

Changing house, going back to work, living alone, going on vacation.. Wishful thinking that other people, or your environment will do the work you don't want to do, or at least haven't done so far. There's no way around it, you've been procrastinating putting in the work to become a better you. It's all in the future, you will do it when <insert external variable>.

I'm being completely honest and just telling you what I see. What are you doing, not thinking of doing but really doing, that contributes to your goals? Or are you spending the whole day sitting around ranting about the past, your family and social circle? Because that's equal to doing nothing, so you can't expect your situation to magically change when you change nothing yourself. 
Albert Einstein(maybe): The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Who's insane now?

Look back at your journals and see which days you were the most stable. Then repeat those behaviors, NOT the decisions that brought you to this distress. You love logic, don't you? So use it and follow the path that worked!

Come on, you can do it. Nobody is coming to the rescue, and you're responsible. You've survived so much, you can do this easier, you only have your laziness to control.

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I'm 33 weeks free of gaming and 1 week free of porn. I just got back from a fantastic bachelor party on a long weekend trip. It was something that made me feel like myself again. I was around people who wanted to talk to me and was with all of my friends. We talked, laughed, and just relaxed. I was also supported by them for the things I've been going through and got 3 more job offers.

I'm making one last comment about my mother and then it's done. Talking about this has crushed my emotions over the past few months and I'm ready to move on somehow without committing suicide. I don't want to die. I want to live my life.

I don't think it is possible to live here with my mother anymore. I am so exhausted. This experiment has been an unbalanced, unrewarding, and miserable experience. I would say we argue 1 to 5 times per week. I wanted to move home to save for a house and fix our relationship because she would never call me when I lived away from her and I always had to call. If I went over a month without calling, and called her, she would say many underhanded comments to make me feel guilty. We would most certainly argue. But she'd never call first. That should have been a hint that she didn't really want to talk to me, but when I tell this to her she constantly would cry and yell at me saying how dare I say she doesn't care about me. So I go from anger and desolation to sadness and guilt. Neither are happy.

I have tried so hard to fix things because I already don't speak to my father and I didn't want to lose my mother as well. Whenever we sit down to talk about things she does little things to hurt my feelings. She never drinks alcohol and I've never seen her do it in my 28 years. Now, whenever we talk about something that's bothering me, she reaches for a full bottle of liquor within 10 minutes of the talk and looks painfully burdened by me. It makes me feel so terrible about myself and I know she is doing it on purpose. She will then start scratching at her skin and go and smoke cigarettes. After I finish talking about something bothering me (over the past 6 months) like buying a house, a gym routine, hockey, hobbies, work, etc., she just doesn't offer anything to me and starts complaining about her life. 

This evolution started with her talking about her life after I talked. She'd then control the conversation, yell about how everyone uses her, makes underhanded comments to me in a passive aggressive way by saying "some people just do...X" and "X" is something she says I do during other arguments. It's very clear. So then I try to give her advice and she screams at me saying she doesn't want my advice. I take note of all of the things she mentions that I do or don't do, and I work on them. I wash the dishes all of the time now; I cook multiple times per week; I cook with unhealthy foods because she yelled at me for cooking vegetables but never asked me to make anything specific; I tried walking with her and taking her to places but she'd always yell at me after because she kept wanting to do more so she could avoid living at home; I help with groceries but she hates using a list and got mad at me (what the fuck?); I talk to her friends and our family as often as possible when they're around; I stopped giving her advice because she doesn't want to hear it (but is following all of it now and then saying it was her idea to do it - this is another mind game); I try not talking about my problems anymore because it is a burden to her; and finally I also told her back in January (1 month into the experiment) that I could stream hockey from my room and let her watch TV on the 2-3 nights per week that hockey games were on because she needed to de-stress. Just let me know and I can let her use the $800 TV I bought her for Christmas. She never has.

I now just don't know how to talk to her and I don't really want to do it anyways. I am an emotional person. If I don't like you I can't even begin to talk to you. I have been hurt too many times to try and try again. It is hard to explain because some people see the fact that I'm living rent free as a chance to work on my hobbies. But it's not that easy. If I limit my conversation with her and just work on my things, I am productive for 3 days until she unloads on me and starts saying I ignore her and I'm a terrible person to live with and because I'm not talking to her as much I'm just making her depressed. She then starts crying and making comments such as "every person I live with - all of my boyfriends, family, ex husband, and you - always end up not wanting to talk to me and hiding in their rooms. It must be something I'm doing! But I am just being used like a doormat!". She verbally abuses people and makes them feel bad. Then they run away from her and ignore her. She then smokes a cigarette and forgets the argument, calms down, and tries to tell them a joke and make the situation better. That worked on everyone in her life except my dad and me. My dad would hold it against her and they'd argue. But he'd also just go from angry to happy. It made no sense to me. 

I would try so hard to break down the situation I was in and study what was going on if my parents went from happy to sad to happy again. It was painfully quick and when I logically broke down the interactions leading up to, during, and after the altercations, I realized very few of the arguments were logical at all. So I then studied their histories starting from childhood to the date of the incident. I did this over the course of 15 years. I learned that the two of them don't deal with stress well at all. Both of them hold things against everyone and are too stubborn to apologize. Growing up with two people who don't apologize means I had to apologize for everything, even for things that don't require apologizing. I found this out because I was working one day and apologized for several dumb things that had nothing to do with me. I got asked why I did that. I said I don't know, but took it to heart because I thought it was odd as well. I found that I was blamed for a lot of things. I currently get blamed for my mom's cholesterol going up even though I eat 3-5 meals per day consisting of balanced proteins, carbs, and fats and track my diet on MyFitnessPal. She sits and eats whole cases of Oreos and M&Ms and keeps buying fattening foods. It is difficult not to eat these because I had lost 50 pounds after moving out of the house. I have gained 17 pounds since living here even though I'm tracking my diet. I record my failures and the failures are happening often because the food is just in front of me at all times.

I also wanted to make a point to say that if I talk about certain people or environments impacting my mentality and actions, it is not because I'm blaming them and can't handle responsibility. I am more responsible than most of the people I know and interact with, including this website. I have two degrees in some of the hardest fields in science with a 4.0 GPA, multiple friends who include me in their lives and reach out to me, I have quit video games longer than most people I know and have been improving many areas of my life, I donate time every week to students and teach them math and science as well as team building techniques, I was working 40-60 hours a week in a demanding field and now work 40-50 hours a week on my passion projects that I'm trying to develop into a career, I pay my bills, work hard, and acknowledge when things are bad. If I complain about people it's either one of two things: a reaction where I can't handle something that's bothering me so I post it in here and then most likely delete it because it's personal like this post, or I am studying something that I'm working on regarding personal development. I am trying to figure out something such as a why I am afraid to open up to people and let them into my heart. So a smart thing to do is research what all of those emotions are and whether I've experienced them. I've experienced a lot of ignorance and neglect in my life. Not neglect in the sense many people like my mother would think is neglect such as a dog starving on the side of a road without an owner, but rather key emotional developments in life and spending quality time with depth interactions. 

I don't need to write multiple reasons for my cases of neglect or issues because they are private to me and I fear that one day my family will read these posts and just misunderstand things because they never seem to understand things. But just trust me that I'm not being some ignorant idiot who is "lazy" and can't control my feelings. I find this very ignorant if anyone believes I participate in this behavior. I have battled so hard to battle through depression and achieve goals that most people who say these things couldn't do in multiple lifetimes. For that I am proud of myself. I complain on here because I am so desperate for help that I can't explain it. Environments change moods and so do the people you spend the most time with. I'm tired of people like my mother and other friends saying "you just need to drop things" because that's unfair. People put these "things" on my plate to drop them. They leave them on me and run away. Then I try to create something with them and turn bad things into a positive. When I bring the topic back up again that person who "dropped the burden to move on" gets very angry and can't handle dealing with it and starts doing bad coping mechanisms.

This is not targeted at any specific person, but multiple people in my life constantly bring this up whether it's my mom, my dad, my family, or people on here. 

The reason I am asking so many people for advice is because I feel so exhausted and lost and I'm getting paralyzed by decisions in my life. I already moved home from a bad living situation, I then tried saving for a house and tried to buy it before I was ready because living with my mom was really making me depressed. I had a 3 hour commute and that wouldn't let me de-stress. I had to get more stressed out by getting cut off or being stuck in traffic. I then come home to just garbage comments over everything and have it turned back on me. I then quit my job to alleviate things and now I'm just lost.

Looking back on this I've found that I need to do things to pull my mind out of the bad situation. If I fixate on things then they become worse and I can't escape negative thinking. This leads me to staying up all night with chapters of anger being unraveled in my mind. Insomnia through anger. I could have just bought an apartment for a year, but multiple people keep giving feedback about buying etc.

I think parts of what @fawn_xoxo and @Mouxine and @Vera have said have clicked with things my close friends in real life have said. But do they align with what I need? I've been thinking about this. Everyone has been helpful in different ways and I appreciate that.

I quit my job for a reason regardless of my situation. I didn't like the upper management there. Most of the young engineers there quit to find better companies who treat them better. They have a low retention rate after 3 years for many employees. In the past 10 years my department has acquired and lost so many people that there are only 2 people working there longer than 5 years. 

When I liked an engineering project I actually dove right into it. The only reason I thought of my cartoon career was that I was unhappy with both of the jobs I've held so far. At the first company I worked at we had 15 people in our department. Only 2 are left today. 13 quit in 9 months after I left. Similar things are happening. Engineering is a fun field sometimes, but it burns you out and you need a strong structure in place to keep going.

I get so fixated to the idea of owning a home because my family never owned a home. I am a home body. I don't like long vacations, I don't like camping, and I don't like getting drunk at parties. My ideas of fun are spending quality time with people doing fun activities or just relaxing and talking about nothing. I want to work on hobbies and create things rather than watch TV or bar hop. A home is like a vessel for me to do that, but it's painfully expensive. It's the most difficult time in the history of the United States to buy a home right now and it's difficult. Many families in the 1950s or 1980s could go to college, get married, buy a home, and have kids before the age of 30. That's been pushed back by almost 10 years now on a national scale.

Rent is super expensive and most places to rent are terrible with bad maintenance. But I think it might be worth renting something slightly higher than my initial budget so i can live comfortably. I was trying to spend only $12,000 on rent per year when I was making $70,000 per year to save money for a home. If I changed that to $15,000 per year I'd be in a much better environment at the cost of a biweekly pay check. That's it. $3,000. I can afford that easily. If I do that for a few years and gain my independence back then I'll be in a spot where I'm comfortable, independent, and able to work on my hobbies.

I'm just comparing my life now to when I was working and I was much happier working than I am now. Although I complained about my job and everything, I found that home has been difficult. My life has gotten more difficult each month and I can't take it anymore.

Regarding my hobbies: I've found that no matter what part of life I'm in and what hobby I'm doing I still get anxiety or frustration before starting it. That's what pushed me to video games and porn for so long. I found that if I just dive right into it and mess up for a bit and fix it, etc., that I'm way happier and find that I benefited from the experience. This builds confidence and helps me keep working on things.

My artist didn't quit his job and still draws me tons of concept art. I think I just have been so depressed over a few things at work and home that everything kind of hit at once and I wanted to quit everything. So I left work, left home, and just got to think.

I know it's bad that I'm wanting to go back to a career right now, but I'm not able to work on all of my ideas at home because of my environment. I can't just drop issues that are stressing me out at home because they get repeated and I need to communicate them if I want to save this relationship with my mom. This hasn't worked, but I still just can't drop everything. That isn't called "thick skin" it's called being a push over. I was bullied in school, bullied at home, and told to just drop things. I believe if someone does something wrong to you they explain what went wrong and you both work things out. If you can't work things out then one or both parties are not mature or intelligent enough to do it. Just dropping things is how my mother and father became pushovers and ignorant. I can't do that.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

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There's something really not right about your mother. Sounds like she's manipulative. She never calls, but when you are at her place, she wants you to make the slave ... Here's a list of 30 characteristics of a manipulator according to Isabelle Nazare-Aga (she's famous in France). It helped me realize my step mother was manipulative (27 out of 30). What about your mother ?

1 They make other people feel guilty, in the name of professional conscience, family ties, friendship, love, etc.

2 They unload their responsibilities onto others or dismiss their own responsibilities.

3 They do not clearly communicate their requests, needs, feelings or opinions.

4 They often respond vaguely.

5 They change their opinions, behaviours, or feelings depending on the person or situation.

6 They cite all kinds of logical reasons to disguise their requests.

7 They make others believe that they must be perfect, never change their minds, always know everything, and immediately respond to requests and questions.

8 They cast into doubt the qualities, skills and personalities of other people—they criticize without appearing to do so, devalue and judge.

9 They have their messages communicated by other people or via intermediaries (telephone instead of face-to-face, written notes).

10 They create suspicion and stir up ill feeling; they divide to conquer, driving a wedge between people, which can lead to relationship break-ups.

11 They know how to make themselves into victims to gain sympathy (e.g. exaggerated illness, « difficult » surroundings, overloaded at work).

12 They ignore requests (even if they claim to be taking care of them).

13 They use the moral principles of others (e.g. notions of humanity, charity, racism, « good » or « bad » mother) to satisfy their needs.

14 They make veiled threats or openly resort to blackmail.

15 They abruptly change topic in mid-conversation.

16 They avoid or get out of discussions and meetings.

17 They rely on the ignorance of others while vaunting their own superiority.

18 They lie.

19 They make false statements to discover the truth, twist and interpret facts to suit themselves.

20 They are self-centred.

21 They can be jealous, even if they are parents or spouses.

22 They cannot take criticism, and deny facts.

23 They do not take into account the rights, needs and desires of others.

24 They often wait until the last minute to ask, order or have others do something.

25 Their words appear logical and consistent, while their attitudes, actions or lifestyle are totally opposite.

26 They use flattery to seduce us, give gifts or suddenly start waiting on us hand and foot.

27 They generate a state of discomfort or of not being free (trap).

28 They are excellent at meeting their own goals, but at the expense of others.

29 They make us do things that we would probably not have done of our own free will.

30 They are constantly the focus of conversation among people who know them, even if they are not present.

Individuals who are said to be manipulators act in accordance with at least 14 characteristics on this list. People with fewer than eight of the listed attitudes are not considered to have a manipulative personality.

Book of Sirach chap 6 :

6 Let your acquaintances be many, but for advisers choose one out of a thousand.

7 If you want to make a friend, take him on trial, and do not be in a hurry to trust him;

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56 minutes ago, Mouxine said:

There's something really not right about your mother. Sounds like she's manipulative. She never calls, but when you are at her place, she wants you to make the slave ... Here's a list of 30 characteristics of a manipulator according to Isabelle Nazare-Aga (she's famous in France). It helped me realize my step mother was manipulative (27 out of 30). What about your mother ?

1 They make other people feel guilty, in the name of professional conscience, family ties, friendship, love, etc.

2 They unload their responsibilities onto others or dismiss their own responsibilities.

3 They do not clearly communicate their requests, needs, feelings or opinions.

4 They often respond vaguely.

5 They change their opinions, behaviours, or feelings depending on the person or situation.

6 They cite all kinds of logical reasons to disguise their requests.

7 They make others believe that they must be perfect, never change their minds, always know everything, and immediately respond to requests and questions.

8 They cast into doubt the qualities, skills and personalities of other people—they criticize without appearing to do so, devalue and judge.

9 They have their messages communicated by other people or via intermediaries (telephone instead of face-to-face, written notes).

10 They create suspicion and stir up ill feeling; they divide to conquer, driving a wedge between people, which can lead to relationship break-ups.

11 They know how to make themselves into victims to gain sympathy (e.g. exaggerated illness, « difficult » surroundings, overloaded at work).

12 They ignore requests (even if they claim to be taking care of them).

13 They use the moral principles of others (e.g. notions of humanity, charity, racism, « good » or « bad » mother) to satisfy their needs.

14 They make veiled threats or openly resort to blackmail.

15 They abruptly change topic in mid-conversation.

16 They avoid or get out of discussions and meetings.

17 They rely on the ignorance of others while vaunting their own superiority.

18 They lie.

19 They make false statements to discover the truth, twist and interpret facts to suit themselves.

20 They are self-centred.

21 They can be jealous, even if they are parents or spouses.

22 They cannot take criticism, and deny facts.

23 They do not take into account the rights, needs and desires of others.

24 They often wait until the last minute to ask, order or have others do something.

25 Their words appear logical and consistent, while their attitudes, actions or lifestyle are totally opposite.

26 They use flattery to seduce us, give gifts or suddenly start waiting on us hand and foot.

27 They generate a state of discomfort or of not being free (trap).

28 They are excellent at meeting their own goals, but at the expense of others.

29 They make us do things that we would probably not have done of our own free will.

30 They are constantly the focus of conversation among people who know them, even if they are not present.

Individuals who are said to be manipulators act in accordance with at least 14 characteristics on this list. People with fewer than eight of the listed attitudes are not considered to have a manipulative personality.

Book of Sirach chap 6 :

6 Let your acquaintances be many, but for advisers choose one out of a thousand.

7 If you want to make a friend, take him on trial, and do not be in a hurry to trust him;

Thank you. I appreciate this. I'm trying to keep a note to myself to not reach out to so many people for advice now. I'll talk in the diary, but I have been asking everyone under the sun and that also makes it impossible to clear my mind.

I will do my best.

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I think you analyze well and in the correct direction, I feel a shift in your writing. Even if not, I believe the long-term (say a year) idea of just being on each others' throat seems dismal.

Good luck with whatever decision you decide to make!

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It is officially over for my relationship with my mother. We agreed to talk tonight about strategies in supporting each other and reconciling our differences to form a habitable environment to heal at home. The conversation lasted 3 hours and was a disaster that I won't spend time divulging. What I will say is that it was the final straw for me. I put so much effort tonight into discussing what I can do better, what has been hurting me, and the reason I don't want to give up on her because I love her and she is so important to me. The night ended with her ignoring everything I said, flipping it, harassing me and manipulating the conversation. Anything I said she'd flip it and repeat it at me as if she was staying a brand new conversation. She then said I only moved home to treat her poorly as an act of revenge against her since I lived with my father for 3 months in 2011. 

I feel so hurt by all of this. I need to leave. I am heartbroken. I already lost my father because he was so abusive and now my mother just treats me like him and enjoys picking fights with me. I have to accept that both of my parents hurt me and move on. 

My next step is an apartment and then an engineering job. I will work on my hobbies in my spare time and treat this as the humbling experience I needed to understand patience and self help. 

I have never met someone as brainwashed and delusional as my mother. I honestly do not know who is worse between her and my dad right now. 

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21 minutes ago, Ikar said:

I think you analyze well and in the correct direction, I feel a shift in your writing. Even if not, I believe the long-term (say a year) idea of just being on each others' throat seems dismal.

Good luck with whatever decision you decide to make!

Thank you. I'll see what happens from here. I am taking action from now on. 

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I have 17 apartment tours this week as well as 3 job interviews at companies outside of the city and where I have friends working. My mother woke me up at 7:30 after I finally went to bed at 6 AM to start another argument with me.

I have never felt so harassed and verbally abused in my life. I am accepting the fact that I need to be an engineer for the next few years while I develop my animation skills, comedy skills, and develop myself in a regular way. I miss being at work honestly. The commute I had was hurting me as well as the bad living situations I've had.

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I'm 34 weeks free of gaming. The weeks are going by and I'm very proud of my ability to not only abstain, but believe in a life where video games are not a necessity to my happiness.

As promised, I have big news to share. I was hired again as an engineer. I really missed being an engineer after my time away. People will comment how I gave up on my dream for animation and comedy, but I didn't. I don't think I was ready for such a leap. I had hardly put any effort into developing my skills as a comic or cartoon producer. I also enjoy bridges. I had said I was tired of them, but I think I was burnt out. I actually miss the fact and appreciate how I was able to design our infrastructure. It is cool knowing what goes on behind the scenes and having the inside scoop on what is going to happen around the country years before anyone else knows about it. I also recognized the pride of being an engineer and my great accomplishments in becoming one. Just one look back at my resume/LinkedIn biography just hit me with how accomplished I am. When I look back at the post I wrote before regarding my timeline, I see how much I struggled to get out of my home life and become an engineer. Taking time to be introspective really helped me realize this.

My company also treated me very well and I think I got carried away with thoughts regarding my insecurities and self esteem issues. I think having my own space and not sharing with people will help. I place heavy expectations on them and myself and that isn't always the right thing. I need time alone to focus on myself. I also want my own space to work on these new hobbies I've been practicing for the past month. I'm not longer afraid to write a script or create a website. I'm eager to do it now. My issue is there are some nights where I require rest. I wasn't doing that. Having rest is important to recharge. I wasn't allowing myself to watch TV for an hour or read a book because it was unproductive. Calling a friend was a waste of time. It's not. It's just called living life. I appreciate that now and want to work on that more. I was so hooked on being the best student, best employee, best goalie in NHL video games, best and efficient clan leader and RuneScape player, best Overwatch player, most efficient at the gym or yoga, etc. It just made me avoid new hobbies because I needed to be the best at them and it was a tremendous amount of unrealistic pressure and expectations. I started to hate myself and I also let that hate seep into my opinion of others.

I'm going to be grateful for my new life. I want to treat work as work, but appreciate what they do for me and not be so entitled. I get entitled when my ego gets large. I have a very large ego that sways my vision and perspective in life. That needs to be destroyed a bit. Ego is good, but too much turns me into Napoleon. 

I'm putting an offer in on a condo that I really want to own. It's a great property and very affordable for me. If I do not get it I will rent a very upscale apartment because I'm tired of living in these shit apartments that I don't look forward to seeing at all. I need to enjoy life more and part of enjoying life is enjoying your environment.

Thanks for reading and helping.

Matt

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I met with my father on father's day and spoke with him for the first time in 8 years. It was a tremendous relief and felt great for me. We both discussed what went wrong in our relationship and reconciled in a positive way. I feel like a burden has been lifted off of my shoulders. Years of hatred can begin to be healed now. He was respectful and understanding. He just listened to me and helped. We spoke for 8 hours or so and it really put a bandage on a wounded part of my heart. Let's hope it can progress and be ok.

My mother was very angry about it and got extremely defensive. She kept insulting him in a passive aggressive way. She always seems to deflect anger onto others. If it's not me it is someone else. She didn't say she was happy for me or anything. She just kept making comments like "I'm surprised he didn't fuck you over". "did he try to do this..." etc. It was another frustrating conversation. I left the room to watch TV and came downstairs to just relax on the couch with her. We did not speak and I felt very sad. This is just what I wanted. I wanted us to relax together and not hear any mean words. This made me sad because I know it is just not going to be a reality. I just appreciate that moment.

I decided not to buy a house yet. I am not emotionally ready for this. I quit video games but I'm so mentally unstable. I'm relying too much on the opinion of others and that is creating conflict between varying opinions and I've lost my voice and path. The apartment I'm applying for is more expensive than anything I've lived in, but it provides me everything I wanted in a place. It's luxurious, comfortable, has every amenity I need, a private gym, pool, community events, and security. This provides me with the comfort I need to heal while building myself up again.

 

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On 6/17/2019 at 8:21 PM, BooksandTrees said:

I met with my father on father's day and spoke with him for the first time in 8 years. It was a tremendous relief and felt great for me. We both discussed what went wrong in our relationship and reconciled in a positive way. I feel like a burden has been lifted off of my shoulders. Years of hatred can begin to be healed now. He was respectful and understanding. He just listened to me and helped. We spoke for 8 hours or so and it really put a bandage on a wounded part of my heart. Let's hope it can progress and be ok.

Oh waw! That's great man! 8 hours is hella long too! I'm happy that it went so well.

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I watched porn today after only 2 days away from it. This is so frustrating and it's happening in part to me just giving up on everything. I have been so depressed the past few weeks and it's just taking its toll on me in a bad way. I lay in bed not wanting to eat, move, or get out of it. I just sit there with tears coming down my face but I'm not actually in the act of crying. 

Instead of complaining entirely this post like I usually do, I will actually state a few reasons I'm grateful. I'm grateful I got my job back because it is going to give me some certainty in my life again as I heal from depression. My bosses were very generous and forgiving in allowing me to return. I am so thankful for that. This also allows me to buy a luxury apartment that I know I'm able to live in. This is a huge step and I really hope I can move into this one soon. Having a job and being respected at such a high level of work will bring my confidence back in myself, but also in my appearance in the community in world. It will open my social network back up and surround me with capable and intelligent people. I miss that a lot. I miss having that importance. I think that's a sense of self purpose I took for granted. I was looking for purpose in life, but really life is pointless if you're looking at the big picture. It depends on how I want to live life and what makes my life better overall. 

Having my own apartment is going to hopefully allow me to decompress a bit but also gain some much needed control in my life. Control will allow me to cook the food I want, meal prep, eat when I want, and exercise when I want. I could not do this at home because my mom would get furious if I didn't cook for her, then get angry that vegetables were there and didn't want them made. She also bought lots of sugary food and left it in front of me or just flat out kept handing it to me. I didn't buy junk food when I had my own apartment and I lost 50 lbs that way. One way to deal with cravings is not feeding them by force. 

Although I have not been creating content, I've been recording my ideas for YouTube videos, writing, and podcasting. I'm just going to do these when I feel like it. I'm going to practice the idea of "I want to do this when I get home" and just do it. I get frozen when thinking of things to do because I allow myself to be caught up in so many small details. I'm just gonna start thinking of things I want to do for fun, plan them ahead of time, and just kind of work on them if I want. I'm also going to allow myself to watch TV and relax when I get home sometimes. I associated television with wasting time because video games were a waste of time for me and I would get anxiety. 

I'm also grateful for my friends. I played board games tonight with my friends from work and they were all excited to have me back. It made my worries about returning diminish a bit.

 

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I feel like my life is fading. I don't want to do anything. I have lost all reason for doing anything. I can't explain it. I just feel so bogged down. I wake up and have no reason to wake up. My friends talk to me and I just don't see the point. I don't play video games so I don't do anything. I don't want to work on any of the passion projects I've been so devoted to working on. It is terrible. I've never felt such a disconnect from community, people, or life. Time is flying by because I'm letting it. I sleep all day and night. All I do is sleep. I eat only 1-2 meals per day now and just feel like my spirit is fading.

Hockey is over, my projects mean nothing, my career means nothing, the people in my life mean nothing. I'm so let down by my mother and what has happened. I know dwelling on it is fruitless, but I'm so very disappointed and lost. I'm filled with hate, but know hate is meaningless. So I have to dispel the hatred and funnel it elsewhere. But it just stays inside because I don't want to do anything. Every muscle on my body is tight. I have not done yoga or anything. I don't move. I'm gaining weight. Idk anymore. I don't even want to play video games. I just want to sit here and not achieve. Depression is a whale and I'm under it.

I don't want any shit advice about getting up and going. I clearly know that's the method. I just don't feel like it or want to do it. I'm just writing. Let me write.

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