Dear Diary...

[TheNewMe2.0]

Two hours a day is a lot! You're moving fast towards mastery at that rate. Yes, taking it easy on ourselves is a process we have to continually revisit. I've found being okay with being good enough instead of perfect is something I continually practice. I don't do much though like you do. I wish I could be so productive and hardworking. I just get tired and overwhelmed too easily. Being around therapy all the time has made me more committed to being okay with myself and my life when it's good enough. Rather than getting upset over it being imperfect or that I haven't dedicated 10 years to drawing by now or whatever. I'm just happy to be alive, off games and substances and doing something good with my time on earth. Compared to when I sat in a room for years smoking weed, watching porn and playing warcraft III or LoL. I've come a long way. I'm happy and proud of myself. Even though I'm not someone who has achieved all that much to be honest. I have a masters in Psych and am moving towards licensure, I workout and draw, but I'm not accomplished in any hobbies or my career. I'm pretty average. If I can be happy with me maybe you can be happy with you too. I hope so. You're good enough. 🙂 I think you can be content with where you're at while still striving to be better each day. 

[BooksandTrees]

1 hour ago, Erik2.0 said:

Two hours a day is a lot! You're moving fast towards mastery at that rate. Yes, taking it easy on ourselves is a process we have to continually revisit. I've found being okay with being good enough instead of perfect is something I continually practice. I don't do much though like you do. I wish I could be so productive and hardworking. I just get tired and overwhelmed too easily. Being around therapy all the time has made me more committed to being okay with myself and my life when it's good enough. Rather than getting upset over it being imperfect or that I haven't dedicated 10 years to drawing by now or whatever. I'm just happy to be alive, off games and substances and doing something good with my time on earth. Compared to when I sat in a room for years smoking weed, watching porn and playing warcraft III or LoL. I've come a long way. I'm happy and proud of myself. Even though I'm not someone who has achieved all that much to be honest. I have a masters in Psych and am moving towards licensure, I workout and draw, but I'm not accomplished in any hobbies or my career. I'm pretty average. If I can be happy with me maybe you can be happy with you too. I hope so. You're good enough. 🙂 I think you can be content with where you're at while still striving to be better each day. 

This helped a lot. I'm struggling real bad right now with game cravings. I don't really want to go for walks and I've been very burnt out from work. I pushed myself to do 3d modeling last weekend and the weekend before and it's just not restorative. I just want something to do that is fun and relaxing. I don't do anything fun. It's just a little miserable for me the past few days. Porn has really crushed me and I have no energy to do anything new. I tried relaxing and watching TV, but I just watch reality shows and they don't end. It's stressful. I think movies might be a better solution. I haven't read books in a while either. 

[BooksandTrees]

I'm so frustrated. I destroyed my sleep schedule last Thursday and I can't recover. I'm wide awake at 2 am.

I know I'm tired, but my mind is wired. Instead of relaxing I chose to watch YouTube until 11 pm. I then chose to read the internet. I then watched porn. I then watched an entire episode of tv. I then watched YouTube. I then read the news. 

After 560 days I'm still not being responsible and limiting screen time after 930 pm. This has become an accountability issue for me. 

I'm disappointed in myself. I should know better. 

[Alexanderle]

8 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

After 560 days I'm still not being responsible and limiting screen time after 930 pm. This has become an accountability issue for me. 

I'm disappointed in myself. I should know better. 

I think you are highly responsible. Look at all the things, you have accomplished ever since you started. I think it is not easy to shake the habit of looking into screens - they are everywhere. The good news: While you are 560 days in, there are many days to follow. Just do better the next day, according to your standards. Sometimes, we have trouble to sleep. Maybe there is a reason for that. Some inner turmoil or something.

[BooksandTrees]

22 minutes ago, Alexanderle said:

I think you are highly responsible. Look at all the things, you have accomplished ever since you started. I think it is not easy to shake the habit of looking into screens - they are everywhere. The good news: While you are 560 days in, there are many days to follow. Just do better the next day, according to your standards. Sometimes, we have trouble to sleep. Maybe there is a reason for that. Some inner turmoil or something.

Thanks. I think I really want to have sex. I also want a relationship. I wish I could do hobbies for an hour or two and be fine with it and not make a second or third job out of it. I wish I knew how long to enjoy something and understand when to stop. I wish I could just accept life outside of work and enjoy it. 

I don't think I allow myself to have any fun. I reprimand myself for eating out or watching a movie or something. I'm so mean to myself. The only release I have is porn. 

It's not logical to date during the pandemic for safety reasons. But idk. The dating app also really hurt my feelings. I got very angry last Saturday and haven't been able to shake it. This girl matched with me for the soul purpose of picking a fight. She made fun of anything I said and wouldn't unmatch with me. So I told her off and unmatched her. 

I really wanted to make her feel bad, but restrained myself. But I can't stop thinking about how angry she made me even though I won and got the last word. 

Now it's 3 AM and it's the 3rd night in a row ove been up this late or later. It's amazing how powerful my temper is. It scares me.

Luckily, I have therapy today. 14 hours away. I'm also going grocery shopping in 11 hours. 

I think I need to get over my anger and just be a friendlier person. I try to make my mom and dad feel like shit as often as possible because if my past. I'm jealous of friends and resent myself. I enjoy belittling people in order to go on power trips.

I want to appreciate people and life more. I think Erik has a great outlook with his appreciation journal. I don't. I look for reasons someone is pathetic and just ruminate on it.

Why do I enjoy that? It makes me feel like a criminal to be honest and that worries me.

[Alexanderle]

29 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

I don't think I allow myself to have any fun. I reprimand myself for eating out or watching a movie or something. I'm so mean to myself.

Wow, I can really see myself in your struggles as well. I am sometimes so worried about eating "clean" and "the right stuff" that it becomes quite obsessive. I recently stumbled over the term "orthorexia nervosa", which is not an official clinical term, but quite fitting. It basically describes the overarching need to only eat healthy in an obsessed manner. I think that it gives me a feeling of control, since I struggled so much with food for basically my whole life. The same with procrastination: The only way to deal with it is to work superhard and be busy the whole day. Maybe that could be a similar thing for you as well. 

29 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

I want to appreciate people and life more. I think Erik has a great outlook with his appreciation journal. I don't. I look for reasons someone is pathetic and just ruminate on it.

Why do I enjoy that? It makes me feel like a criminal to be honest and that worries me.

I think so as well. What Erik does is great! Appreciation is a great. Maybe, it would be good for you and me, to also appreciate the "bad" things. I really don't think you are a criminal for watching porn, being jealous sometimes or being angry at yourself. You want a relationship and appreciation. Who wouldn't?

29 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

This girl matched with me for the soul purpose of picking a fight. She made fun of anything I said and wouldn't unmatch with me. So I told her off and unmatched her. 

Regarding this dating thing: Some people seem to be there only for the purpose of checking out their value or having fun out of boredom. Ignore them. Sure, she hurt your feelings, but maybe she wasn't aware of that. She just want to get something out of that app similarly to you. Guess you are not compatible. Of course maybe she is there for the sole reason to make fun of other people. But those trolls should be ignored as well. So, good that you unmatched her. But there are many more people out there, who have similar intentions like you have. In real life as well as online. 🙂 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Alexanderle

[Ikar]

1 hour ago, BooksandTrees said:

It's not logical to date during the pandemic for safety reasons. But idk. The dating app also really hurt my feelings. I got very angry last Saturday and haven't been able to shake it. This girl matched with me for the soul purpose of picking a fight. She made fun of anything I said and wouldn't unmatch with me. So I told her off and unmatched her. 

I really wanted to make her feel bad, but restrained myself. But I can't stop thinking about how angry she made me even though I won and got the last word. 

Don't give up and don't shoot the messenger, if he does a good job for you. If that woman has nothing better to do than to harass people online, it's her issue, not yours.

I remember I got a match several months ago and since I was exhilarated by studying psychology, Peterson, Sapolsky and other people and things, I tended to apply it everywhere. She mentioned MBTI and later on I got called sexist for writing there are differences between men and women on average, as the Big 5 shows. It was quite surreal 😄

Edited April 28, 2020 by Ikar

[BooksandTrees]

Thanks guys. I have felt so depressed and terrible the past 5 days and trying to shake it. I'm going to work on being more optimistic and smile more. I watched a really interesting video about self hatred, anxiety, and depression and it was like the narrator read my personality profile like a book. Very humbling and I appreciate that this kind of information is out there. 

It says the only way out of it is practicing gratitude, optimism, and stop rumination every day until it doesn't become work anymore, but a lifestyle. 

I also appreciate you guys taking the time to help me. It means a lot and has immediate impacts on my mental wellbeing. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by BooksandTrees

[TheNewMe2.0]

I hope you feel better and glad what I said helped. Books and walks might help, I try to do those daily. Meditating helps me too. I started the gratitude list on here because @Cam Adair said to list 10 things you're grateful for each day in one of his videos. The other parts of my journal I got from group therapy suggestions. I read a book that said gratitude is like broccoli. It's good for you, but only if you eat it. That was gratitude daily by Nataly Kogan on hoopla. I'm reading the happiness advantage by Shawn Achor right now. If you're looking for some books on this sort of thing.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Erik2.0

[BooksandTrees]

Today was the first day in 5 days that I did not have a severe craving for games. I almost played them, but kept calling friends, family, and posting on here and talking to my therapist. 

There's a few things I've learned and want to experience:

1. I'm not having fun and not looking at any activity at all to have fun with. 
2. I'm a chaser and not exhibiting self control
3. I'm not setting myself up to succeed

1. I'm treating every activity or hobby like a job. I enjoyed making voltorb, but once I started trying to make furniture in 3d to practice hard modeling I got upset and stressed out. I really just wanted to make another pokemon. In that instance, I chose work over fun. 

I'm doing the same thing with the drums. I really wanted to learn how to play a few songs on the drums, but instead I thought about training to do all the beats correctly and then train as a drummer until I had the level of experience to learn that song. Once again i choose work over fun.

I want to talk to my friends. Instead of talking to them I think about recording the conversations to make a podcast and make money off of it instead of relaxing and talking. Once again I choose work over fun.

My friends ask to brew beer with me. I make 3 brews and everyone tells me they'd love to drink it. I day dream about making a brewery and selling craft beer. I then lose interest in it because it sounds like work. Once again I chose work over fun.

I wanted to lose weight by modifying my diet and exercsing. Instead of doing that I daydreamed about making a YouTube channel where I track my weight and journal my experience. Once again I turn that into work. I didn't do that and this time around I'm losing weight and exercising for me. So that is something.

I love hockey. Instead of just watching it to enjoy the sport, I tried making a podcast and a website to profit off of my knowledge. That turned into work and I got angry. Once again I chose work over fun.

2. When I played games I had no self control. I would lose 3 games in a row with a friend. My friend would log off and go outside and do something else. I would think I could win 5 in a row and make up for it. I'd end up going 0-8 and feel sick after. With RuneScape I'd keep chasing after more money, more exp, more stats, more levels. I also couldn't cap myself at a few hours even if I was winning. I had to keep chasing victory.

I watch porn before bed every day. Sometimes it keeps me awake and gets me excited. I try to watch YouTube to calm down after and then I can't sleep for hours. I watch porn again and sometimes it does the trick, but by this point it's 3 AM or later and I ruined the next day.

Instead of just enjoying an activity I try to chase it and make it into work or success or money. I also can't stop watching a tv show that has lots of episodes without binging it.

3. I'm not setting myself up for success. I leave my phone in my room at night and watch porn and YouTube on it instead of trying to sleep.

I was not meal prepping and I would eat junk food instead. I'm now meal prepping and if you notice I've lost 15 lbs. This is an example of setting myself up for success successfully.

I don't plan my weekends. If I planned my weekends to exercise for a few hours like riding a bike or playing a sport (hard to do during quarantine, but I struggled with this all of last year as well) then I would feel more satisfied. I tried doing this and it was working until I broke my ribs while climbing in February. Right now I wake up on weekends with extreme anxiety regarding how to be productive. I freak out and try to create jobs and work instead of relaxing and trying to do something for fun. I'll watch porn every 4 hours because I can't handle the stress I'm putting on myself. I used to play video games 18 hours a day on weekends because I didn't plan anything else to do and it made me very sick. If I had enough hobbies and interests to spend my day on I feel like I would never have developed the major weekend addiction issues I was facing.

If I don't use the computer or phone for up to 1 hour before bed I won't feel the need to use it. I did this while raeding my books and it worked well. My sleep has been poor since finishing my books and I've increased my porn usage. 

I almost forgot to be more positive and grateful:

I'm grateful for the grocery store today having everything I wanted. I'm grateful for my therapist, family, friends, and online community for helping me through my cravings. I'm grateful for work for staying open during the quarantine and providing me with tasks so I can stay busy. I'm grateful for myself because I did a good job today not calling out sick from work when i felt bad this morning and also solving more problems as well as doing a good job grocery shopping in an efficient and safe way. I'm grateful for filling my car up with gas. I'm grateful for a medical payment coming through for me. I'm grateful for my landlord. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by BooksandTrees

[BooksandTrees]

Another frustrating night. Been in bed for 2.5 hours. I didn't turn my phone on for 2 hours and haven't watched porn. Just can't stop thinking about anything. 

[Ikar]

3 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I don't plan my weekends. If I planned my weekends to exercise for a few hours like riding a bike or playing a sport (hard to do during quarantine, but I struggled with this all of last year as well) then I would feel more satisfied. I tried doing this and it was working until I broke my ribs while climbing in February. Right now I wake up on weekends with extreme anxiety regarding how to be productive. I freak out and try to create jobs and work instead of relaxing and trying to do something for fun. I'll watch porn every 4 hours because I can't handle the stress I'm putting on myself. I used to play video games 18 hours a day on weekends because I didn't plan anything else to do and it made me very sick. If I had enough hobbies and interests to spend my day on I feel like I would never have developed the major weekend addiction issues I was facing.

I wonder if I had an edge going into this whole pandemic situation over most other people. I did face (even if voluntarily) a job loss some 20 months ago, quit games 12 months ago and since then I worked on my individual projects/hobbies/jobs. I know you quit your job and went back into it, but I don't think you ever actually enjoyed the liberty of having an undefined number of "free" days ahead of you while taking care of yourself well. I don't think people normally get to get out of this "8-hours a day" rat-race mindset. It has been a great experience for me so far - it's been very liberating and redefined my outlook on what I "have to" do.

[BooksandTrees]

4 minutes ago, Ikar said:

I wonder if I had an edge going into this whole pandemic situation over most other people. I did face (even if voluntarily) a job loss some 20 months ago, quit games 12 months ago and since then I worked on my individual projects/hobbies/jobs. I know you quit your job and went back into it, but I don't think you ever actually enjoyed the liberty of having an undefined number of "free" days ahead of you while taking care of yourself well. I don't think people normally get to get out of this "8-hours a day" rat-race mindset. It has been a great experience for me so far - it's been very liberating and redefined my outlook on what I "have to" do.

I agree. That 2 months off was terrible because of the way my mom was treating me and I'll never forgive her for the rest of my life unfortunately. 

[Alexanderle]

@BooksandTrees I don't know what happened between you and your mom. I was not reading everything of that I guess. And whether you want to forgive her is up to you. But I think more important is that you forgive yourself for not being perfect. Have you tried something like meditation before? Yesterday I tried it for myself and is was quite relaxing and calming. Or maybe you could turn on some relaxing music on your phone next to you. Just something you can listen to and to let your mind wander. Just an idea.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Alexanderle

[Amphibian220]

 

there certainly are people with a skill set, work ethic and experience at least matching yours in your country who are unable to find work due to circumstances that they cannot control. If you acknowledge this, you should be a lot more cool with accepting the speed of your improvement and learning on the whole. You will also feel a sense of gratefulness to your country that has raised you and offered this opportunity. 

Are you improving constantly? You posted a graph where there was a downtick in the bad habit. As always, apply the things that increase your self worth on a regular basis and you will drop the bad habit soon.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Amphibian220

[BooksandTrees]

6 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

@BooksandTrees I don't know what happened between you and your mom. I was not reading everything of that I guess. And whether you want to forgive her is up to you. But I think more important is that you forgive yourself for not being perfect. Have you tried something like meditation before? Yesterday I tried it for myself and is was quite relaxing and calming. Or maybe you could turn on some relaxing music on your phone next to you. Just something you can listen to and to let your mind wander. Just an idea.

The music could be relaxing. I woke up 2 hours earlier today which should help. I'll try it. I'm almost there. I think I'll watch something more relaxing before bed too.

[TheNewMe2.0]

Hey good job doing some positivity and gratitude journaling. I think they help us focus on what's good and that's healthy. My page is like a sandwich of however my day went between two nice pieces of bread. I wonder about changing the middle part too sometimes, but then I wouldn't have anywhere to talk about the hard times. 

[BooksandTrees]

13 minutes ago, Erik2.0 said:

Hey good job doing some positivity and gratitude journaling. I think they help us focus on what's good and that's healthy. My page is like a sandwich of however my day went between two nice pieces of bread. I wonder about changing the middle part too sometimes, but then I wouldn't have anywhere to talk about the hard times. 

Just write what you want. Format doesn't work for me, but my writing is structured very well in my opinion. It's your diary. It's not a job or template so don't go nuts or stress. I enjoy reading it.

[BooksandTrees]

Today was better. I went to bed an hour earlier and woke up an hour earlier as well. I was having a slow day and not getting much done, but then I took a 30 minute nap outside in the sun and felt recharged. I got all of my work done without reading the internet. 

I think when we get cravings for bad habits it's because of an underlying problem. I didn't want to work today because I didn't want to compete my projects and I was tired, so I snoozed for 2 hours. 

But that made me more tired. So I napped and it worked. I got my projects done and was neither tired or stressed anymore. 

After that I was able to exercise for 20 minutes, shower, cook dinner, and research a cool project for animation. 

I also realized I try to turn all my hobbies into jobs to escape work one day, but frankly that's just longterm escapism and basically the same thing as video games. If I do hobbies for fun I actually enjoy my time out of work more and in turn enjoy my actual job much more the next day. 

If my animations make money on YouTube then that's great. If not, I had fun. 

A lot of the hobbies we're doing instead of gaming don't have fast enough rewards to make us happy at first. Maybe instead of learning an instrument just learn to play a song you love. 

I enjoyed making my voltorb, but didn't enjoy making objects for my cartoon. So this weekend I'm making a Ghastly and I'm excited. And so should all of you lol.

Today I'm grateful for myself because I overcame my stress in a healthy way. I'm grateful for the community helping me out. I'm grateful for my friends and employer. I'm grateful for my apartment and food. 

[BooksandTrees]

I have written in the past few weeks about burnout. This is a really helpful article I found which highlights almost all of my symptoms and personality points.

I'm applying some of these and hope to do more.

Feel free to read if work and life is burning you out:

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm

@DaBest

[Alexanderle]

definitely a great article. Especially the tips - they don't just apply to burn out, I think they can also be helpful for people with depression which in a sense is quite similar in being burned out due to your current life situation.

[BooksandTrees]

9 minutes ago, Alexanderle said:

definitely a great article. Especially the tips - they don't just apply to burn out, I think they can also be helpful for people with depression which in a sense is quite similar in being burned out due to your current life situation.

Thanks. Honestly, I think it explains a lot. I try to do all my hobbies to attract attention and praise. My industry is thankless and doesn't congratulate you on finishing projects. Only major achievements and it's not emotional at all. It's so restrained and white collar. 

I think we should celebrate projects like scoring goals in a game or something. It makes me feel so empty that I try to get accomplishment out of other activities because work is less rewarding aside from pay and benefits. 

[Alexanderle]

26 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

I think we should celebrate projects like scoring goals in a game or something.

But don't forget about the achievements, you achieved the last months, since you started to take care of yourself. I think that is also quite a bit achievement to become responsible. But I get your point. I think it can be quite hard in an industry like that to be congratulated.

[TheNewMe2.0]

18 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

Just write what you want. Format doesn't work for me, but my writing is structured very well in my opinion. It's your diary. It's not a job or template so don't go nuts or stress. I enjoy reading it.

Oh, thanks. 🙂 I've gotten used to reading yours now too. Before I was too scared to read peoples journals haha.

[TheNewMe2.0]

A lot of the hobbies we're doing instead of gaming don't have fast enough rewards to make us happy at first. Maybe instead of learning an instrument just learn to play a song you love. 

 

I totally agree. The rewards from hobbies come so much slower than they do in video games where you level up in the first five minutes of playing. 

I'm gonna try to enjoy some drawing. 

You sound like you're doing better today. I'll try to checkout that burnout post.