BooksandTrees Posted April 30, 2020 Author Share Posted April 30, 2020 2 hours ago, Erik2.0 said: 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. Thanks. I've really struggled the past week and began questioning myself and my daily activities. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 1, 2020 Author Share Posted May 1, 2020 (edited) Today was a better day again. I completed my logs for April and will post another monthly summary tomorrow. I'm pretty happy with it. I finished more projects at work, exercised a few times when stressed or bored, and also did my second straight day of a 20 minute nap at 2 pm to refuel myself. I also initiated a discussion with my boss to do more exciting projects and get more recognition for completing things, which I need. One reason I loved attention in video games was because I never got praise or attention in real life. As a former pro gamer I enjoyed the feeling I got from success and friends. My video game cravings have subsided almost completely tonight. I spoke with friends, exercised, watched my show, etc. I had some major turning points as well. I'm trying too hard to make a cartoon. My friend and I discussed just making the shorter cartoons. I'm looking forward to those because they provide faster gratification, but not instant gratification, but also not impossible gratification. I mentioned before that our hobbies that we try are so fucking stressful because we get too lofty goals. I was trying to make a 10 episode show that has 25 minutes per episode with no art experience. That's stupid. I'm going to just make another 30 second animation over the next month because I enjoy it and want to share it online. Also, this weekend I'm attacking it by storm. I mentioned in @Erik2.0's diary that we must never hide from what stresses us and make it our strength. My weakness is the weekend. I never had severe gaming issues Monday through Friday. It was the infinite stress of Saturday and Sunday that got me. I wake up on weekends and immediately say "Oh no, I have nothing planned and nothing to do. Today is not worth living. My life is useless...etc." This is extreme anxiety talking. That's why I used to game so much on weekends. I had no plans, no friends, no hobbies or interest that were more interesting than gaming. So gaming and porn has been my weekends for decades along with social media. I've quit gaming and social media, and I'm once again 3 days without porn. I'm going to commit to this, but I can only commit if I plan. Planning weekends is difficult with COVID19 because we can't go out and rock climb, see a movie, travel, see a concert, etc. But I'm not letting that stop me. This Saturday and Sunday I'm going to wake up, eat, exercise and walk outside for 1-2 hours, animate for 1-3 hours, cook and eat lunch, watch a movie for 2-3 hours, draw and listen to a podcast for 1 hour, eat dinner, call someone on the phone for an hour, exercise again or read a book for an hour, etc. I can't do a single task for more than 3 hours because that's not correct to do to myself and is unhealthy. Self control is what my life is going to be about forever. Once COVID19 is over I'll supplant a lot of these with bike riding, tennis, rock climbing, concerts, comedy shows, eating at a restaurant, going to the beach, hiking, trail walking, sports, anything else on my mind at that time. I'm tired of suffering from depression because of the weekends. I watched porn 10 times last weekend and got so depressed I almost played video games again. It took me 5 days to feel better. I'm better than that. The cravings are gone now and the mental pull is over. I have won this difficult battle without relapsing although my whole week was miserable, but sometimes you need to sacrifice a little to gain a lot. This week I'm going to be 80 weeks free from video games and you're fucking right I'm gonna keep that going. I'm not letting this virus isolation crush me. If you're ever feeling like relapsing just do what I did. Keep reaching out to friends, family, people on here, therapists, and be strong. Just be strong and keep doing your best to occupy your time. Thank you for your support this week especially. I'm grateful for the communities, my friends, my coworkers, myself for having strength and awareness, my food, my apartment, my computer, and my bed. I am tired. Edited May 1, 2020 by BooksandTrees 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNewMe2.0 Posted May 1, 2020 Share Posted May 1, 2020 I'm dealing more with the girls. My moms helped me setup times with them so we can share the kitchen and each have our own space. It'll be a tough four months, but I'm going to get through it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 1, 2020 Author Share Posted May 1, 2020 33 minutes ago, Erik2.0 said: I'm dealing more with the girls. My moms helped me setup times with them so we can share the kitchen and each have our own space. It'll be a tough four months, but I'm going to get through it. Good. Negotiating is key 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 2, 2020 Author Share Posted May 2, 2020 (edited) Today I'm feeling defeated and it's hard to feel grateful. Nothing really bad happened. I had a boring day at work, was very hungry, ate my meals, got off the computer, dealt with kids running in my lawn, got stressed, calmed down without bad habits, and began to 3d model. I started a tutorial to learn hard surface modeling so I can make more intricate pokemon shapes. It's just difficult to learn stuff after work. I'm not doing enough stuff for fun in my life and it's wearing on me. 3d modeling and animation is fun right now, but it's only fun when I have finished products because I can't freely create art. I have to watch a tutorial for everything and ask tons of questions. It's so stressful. I enjoy it, but after work it sucks. So I did it for like an hour today and will do a few more hours this weekend. I'm trying to stay in a better mood. Nothing really bad happened at all aside from those kids. I'm just really anxious and stressed out because it's the weekend. I look forward to the weekend so much because I don't have to work, but I agonize because of how stressful it is to spend my time without video games or porn. I'm so miserable it makes me sad beyond belief. It's terrible. After 80 weeks it hasn't improved and I'm just torturing myself with how to live life properly. It's going to take a few months to get good at my software and then I'll be more comfortable. It's just a hobby, not a job. But I just wish I had some fun, mindless things I could do to pass time better that are somewhat interactive. Today I'm grateful for my friends having a video chat with me, losing weight, myself for getting through an emotionally difficult week, food, the people on here for helping, finding a good tutorial to encourage me to model more, and a movie to watch. Edited May 2, 2020 by BooksandTrees 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexanderle Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 6 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: I'm so miserable it makes me sad beyond belief. It's terrible. After 80 weeks it hasn't improved and I'm just torturing myself with how to live life properly. 80 is just a contruct like past or future. You are always one step away from gaming. You are also one step away from hard work, playful fun and abstinence. That is called choice. Be grateful for that choice. What is a properly lived life? What do you think that is? Can you define that? How was your sleep today? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icandothis Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 Hi, I am so sorry you are in so much pain. It’s overwhelming to try to look forward to a weekend that is filled with sadness. Look how far you have come on your 3D modeling! I remember, a couple months ago you were just starting your first tutorial... and now you have finished several projects!! This is a huge accomplishment. Please be gentle and good to yourself. Thank you for continuing so share your journey. Talk soon! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 2, 2020 Author Share Posted May 2, 2020 14 hours ago, Alexanderle said: 80 is just a contruct like past or future. You are always one step away from gaming. You are also one step away from hard work, playful fun and abstinence. That is called choice. Be grateful for that choice. What is a properly lived life? What do you think that is? Can you define that? How was your sleep today? I don't think there is one. I just got angry that I couldn't do anything except game or watch porn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 2, 2020 Author Share Posted May 2, 2020 14 hours ago, Icandothis said: Hi, I am so sorry you are in so much pain. It’s overwhelming to try to look forward to a weekend that is filled with sadness. Look how far you have come on your 3D modeling! I remember, a couple months ago you were just starting your first tutorial... and now you have finished several projects!! This is a huge accomplishment. Please be gentle and good to yourself. Thank you for continuing so share your journey. Talk soon! Thanks. I hope you're doing well. I just find that nothing I'm doing is really restorative or fun. It's exhausting and a burden. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNewMe2.0 Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 I hope you find something nice to do. Maybe you could go for a walk, listen to music or podcasts. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 2, 2020 Author Share Posted May 2, 2020 Today I'm 80 weeks free from video games. I woke up and had to talk to my mom and it really stressed me out. It went really well and I was about to get off the phone and then she purposely said something to get me angry and I completely blew up on her. I could have just ignored it, but she spent time and did a favor with someone who has emotionally abused her for years and it showed great weakness. It also showed that she was not social distancing and being ignorant. I didn't swear at her or verbally abuse her. I am proud of that. I held back and was able to just say how she hurt my feelings by talking about this guy. I tell her all the time about not bringing this guy up and she brings him up every fucking time I talk to him. I told her she doesn't respect me at all because she doesn't care that it hurts my feelings. Just a complete fucking loser in my opinion and doesn't care about my feelings. Instead of freaking out and watching porn I saw it was beautiful out and I hung up on her. I found a really great interview on my favorite podcast and sat outside for 2 hours and listened to it. I really enjoyed being out in the sun today. I got a little sunburn, but I just relaxed out there. I cooked lunch and ate outside and relaxed some more. I then had to talk to my dad for an hour or so but I ended the conversation because he's also a frustrating person to speak to because most of the time he does not give a shit what I have to say and just wants to talk to me about his issues. Same exact thing my mom does. I told my mom I had issues with gaming cravings this week and all she talked about were her problems. I limit talking to them to once a week or once every two weeks and it's never a plus. I'll eventually cut them both out of my life if they don't heed my warnings. I'm so jealous of people who enjoy their families sometimes. But jealousy is a bad thing. So I've accepted they are trash and that others get good families. That's just life. You can't choose your parents, but you can be grateful and appreciative of other things in life. So I've chosen to just accept that they're shit and limit contact for the most part. My dad was "OK" today, but you can tell he just says "yeah" and waits for me to stop talking. I'm just glad I have friends who listen to me and care. So I wrapped up my April summary. I lost another 6 lbs last month and already 1 lb in the first 2 days of May (residual from the week ending with April and May sharing the same week). The caloric intake was very uniform this month with not many skewed days of 2000 calories here or 1300 calories there. It was all pretty much in the 1400-1650 range. Sleep was a mixed bag this month. I struggled to find consistency due to stress. I was exercising infrequently, staying up later due to stress from work, staying up late from watching porn before bed, or other factors. I struggled a lot with porn this month. I averaged only 1 porn session per day for the month, but spent many days watching 3 times a day. I was not enjoying the porn either. I just forced myself to PMO so I could feel better and deal with stress. That wasn't correct to do. I haven't watched porn all week this week and you can notice my sleep log start to regulate around 6.5 hours a night once I stop watching porn. At this point I honestly think porn is way more detrimental to my mental health than video games ever were. Video games were time consuming and made me sick, that's for sure, but porn really sends me into a tailspin that can't be compared. I'm very done with porn and perhaps masturbation, but we'll see. I think you can see how I try to give up porn, then do it in moderation, then just get out of control within 1-2 weeks. All of those major spikes in porn usage are on weekends. So my strategy to spend my weekends has changed. I'm finding more relaxing hobbies and only doing the 3d modeling if I actually feel like it. Although I enjoy it, it's not relaxing or restorative and I find it very stressful. It's something I can only do for 1-2 hours at a time if I really feel up to it right now. That might change eventually, but I find the fun to work ratio is not there. I think with social media, porn, gaming, junk food, and drugs/alcohol can give you too much fun for little work and it fucks you over. As recovering addicts, we get angry at ourselves and try to take on these arduous tasks to find balance. I think we eventually get to where I'm getting where we just want to do something for 1-2 hours and feel good afterwards and not take on these 100-1000 hour projects that are unattainable and unrestorative. This realization came to me through being grateful, finding more forgiveness for myself, and self love. I don't have to torture myself to make these amazing things in my spare time. I'm already working in a career that I enjoy 80% of the time and am financially stable and independent. My career is essential and still open during the pandemic and I'm very fortunate for that. I think I've just accepted myself. I keep trying to have dreams of being famous or getting attention, but that isn't a life I'd enjoy. Realistically, I just want to work, enjoy it most of the time, see friends and talk to them during the week, meet a woman and fall in love, enjoy my spare time and enjoy life. Maybe I play tennis, hockey, and rock climb with them. Maybe I bike ride with them. (Them) being friends, family, and a girlfriend or wife one day. I cook what I want, eat balanced meals and don't turn to food for stress relief. I find comedy to be my biggest stress relief and I enjoy just voicing my opinion often in a funny way. I used to want to be famous off of it, but most of the time that's not necessary. There are going to be weekends like this weekend where I want to relax and do nothing. There will be weekends like in the past where I wanted to make that 3d animation. And you know what? I have the choice to do either of them. That's more than a lot of people have. Some people need to work 2 jobs. I don't. I have the choice. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikar Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 6 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: I think with social media, porn, gaming, junk food, and drugs/alcohol can give you too much fun for little work and it fucks you over. I think we eventually get to where I'm getting where we just want to do something for 1-2 hours and feel good afterwards and not take on these 100-1000 hour projects that are unattainable and unrestorative. I think that's true; we don't start building a wall, we start by laying a brick and another one tomorrow. The last couple of big projects I had took me a few dozens of hours to complete, but I'd hate my being if I decided I want to finish them in a few days. 6 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: I keep trying to have dreams of being famous or getting attention, but that isn't a life I'd enjoy. Realistically, I just want to work, enjoy it most of the time, see friends and talk to them during the week, meet a woman and fall in love, enjoy my spare time and enjoy life. I wouldn't be surprised if all those big ambitions and plans to be recognized were fully interchangeable with something more ordinary such as being around people you enjoy. That kind of personal recognition is difficult to come by. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexanderle Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 A very nice post full of interesting things. 9 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: I'm so jealous of people who enjoy their families sometimes. But jealousy is a bad thing. So I've accepted they are trash and that others get good families. That's just life. You can't choose your parents, but you can be grateful and appreciative of other things in life. So I've chosen to just accept that they're shit and limit contact for the most part. My dad was "OK" today, but you can tell he just says "yeah" and waits for me to stop talking. I'm just glad I have friends who listen to me and care. I understand your point. If it is really that bad than maybe you need to stay away a bit. Whatever might be helpful. Or the opposite. Who knows. I don't. But I know that even my father, who I love dearly, is quite the talker. Sometimes it is just 10 minutes listening to him and about his things. And I am fine with that. The older I become, the more I will be responsible for him. So I deal with that. It is not always about me. But I think there should be some kind of balance. 9 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: I think you can see how I try to give up porn, then do it in moderation, then just get out of control within 1-2 weeks. Interesting that you measure all of that. Isn't this quite time consuming and requires a lot of effort? 9 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: I think we eventually get to where I'm getting where we just want to do something for 1-2 hours and feel good afterwards and not take on these 100-1000 hour projects that are unattainable and unrestorative. That nails it. I don't want to work 24/7 and then be completely tired. I also want some fun in between. I don't want to have the perfect diet without any exeption. I just want to feel good about my body and not feel controlled by bad food. And when I have some fun, I want to be able to just continue to work, when I feel it is needed, without being pulled back by the "fun activity". 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
remember115 Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 12 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: I keep trying to have dreams of being famous or getting attention I can relate to that a lot and would like to try to explicate my personal thoughts on that a bit. I like how you reacted to that wish of "being famous" by starting to ask, what the purpose or the benefit of being famous would actually be. What is the underlying need, that would be forfilled, if people from all over the world would know and admire us? And I think, that you are probably right, if you state, that this wish just shows, how we need someone, who is interested in us, who does see us, recognizes us, accepts us and encourages us. We need someone, who really knows, who we are, someone we can always trust and who still does forgive us and can see the best in us, even when we made mistakes, in other words, who does love us. Being hurt or disappointed while trying to forfill that need can be devastating. And sometimes it is a good exercise to be forgiving, accepting, encouraging to yourself, when no one else is around or willing to do so. It is easy to forget, that just because nobody is around to truely know, accept, forgive and love is, we still deserve to be loved. Being "important" is already beyond that - it does involve responsability and taking care of needs of other people, often people, that you may or may not know very well or be very close to. None of those needs, love or importance, are strictly related to "being famous". Thanks for making me think about that and take care, Remember 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 3, 2020 Author Share Posted May 3, 2020 6 hours ago, Alexanderle said: Interesting that you measure all of that. Isn't this quite time consuming and requires a lot of effort? It's easy. If I watched porn I just write it down. My Fitbit tracks my sleep, I record my calories for 5 minutes a day, and I weigh myself once in the morning before eating and after going to the bathroom. I then just compare patterns with the graphs and remember how I felt during the week it occurred and find the issue. 6 hours ago, Alexanderle said: That nails it. I don't want to work 24/7 and then be completely tired. I also want some fun in between. I don't want to have the perfect diet without any exeption. I just want to feel good about my body and not feel controlled by bad food. And when I have some fun, I want to be able to just continue to work, when I feel it is needed, without being pulled back by the "fun activity". I think we all lost sense of moderation and balance at some point because of self control and lack of awareness of what certain activities did. I want to eat healthy most of the week and be able to enjoy a meal or dessert or a beer with coworkers once a week. That way I'm not controlled by good or bad food and recognize that healthier food keeps my body and mind happier, but the small indulgence is truly appreciated sometimes as an indulgence and not a stress relief or reward. If we're abusing indulgences from stress we're basically rewarding ourself for being in a bad position. Terrible psychology there. My hope is to one day be able to enjoy activities with restraint. It won't ever be video games meant to create addiction like runescape, or porn, or social media. I'm hoping to enjoy tv once in a while, creative hobbies a few hours per week, social hobbies more than the creative ones, and maybe be able to play an offline video game one day. That's not the ultimate goal, but it's like junk food in the house. I bought ice cream and cookies at the grocery store last week and haven't eaten them yet. No cravings. I enjoy my new diet more and don't stress eat. Can I one day do that with an offline video game? I don't know. I'm curious, but I don't want curiosity to stem from a dark addiction looking to give myself excuses to play again. I'd want it to be a once a week for 2 hours on a Saturday because it's the end of the day and I want to unwind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 3, 2020 Author Share Posted May 3, 2020 3 hours ago, remember115 said: I can relate to that a lot and would like to try to explicate my personal thoughts on that a bit. I like how you reacted to that wish of "being famous" by starting to ask, what the purpose or the benefit of being famous would actually be. What is the underlying need, that would be forfilled, if people from all over the world would know and admire us? And I think, that you are probably right, if you state, that this wish just shows, how we need someone, who is interested in us, who does see us, recognizes us, accepts us and encourages us. We need someone, who really knows, who we are, someone we can always trust and who still does forgive us and can see the best in us, even when we made mistakes, in other words, who does love us. Being hurt or disappointed while trying to forfill that need can be devastating. And sometimes it is a good exercise to be forgiving, accepting, encouraging to yourself, when no one else is around or willing to do so. It is easy to forget, that just because nobody is around to truely know, accept, forgive and love is, we still deserve to be loved. Being "important" is already beyond that - it does involve responsability and taking care of needs of other people, often people, that you may or may not know very well or be very close to. None of those needs, love or importance, are strictly related to "being famous". Thanks for making me think about that and take care, Remember I'm glad you enjoyed the post. I just think the end goal of most of my hobbies has been money and public attention and not fun. It just means I'm lonely and not expressing my feelings with people properly so they know I need attention. Unfortunately, that's going to come from me because nobody will read my mind and say oh I gotta call him. I just need to be fortunate I have friends to call and not feel angry they're not calling me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 4, 2020 Author Share Posted May 4, 2020 I'm pretty proud of myself today. I went to bed late last night after being disappointed in how I spent yesterday. I shouldn't have spoken to my parents. It's clearly noted they both anger me and having both in one day was frustrating beyond belief. Even when I took time to relax, it did not sink in. Today I woke up and made some breakfast, relaxed, and then wanted to 3D model. I got angry because I wanted to 3D model yesterday, but I didn't feel like it after being so upset. Today I made it my goal and enjoyed it. It was fulfulling, but not restorative. I've mentioned that I still lack those restorative hobbies, but I felt very accomplished. I mentioned to you guys that I was making another Pokemon, Gastly. So I took some screenshots of my progression. Before you say anything or read below, it's not done yet obviously. I researched a very cool smoke effect to give it a very dynamic animation so it looks gaseous at all times. I also learned how to animate the eyes and mouth and positioning of it. So that will come in the next week or two. At the end of the project I plan on having a 30 second animation at the very least. It took about 6 or 7 hours to make this. It's actually quite challenging to get curvature onto a sphere. But now that I know how to do it I can probably make this in an hour or less. So I'm very proud of myself and thankful to my friend for helping me 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amphibian220 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 I remember having this pokemon in my card pack when I was about 12 years old. You got that face right! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 4, 2020 Author Share Posted May 4, 2020 2 minutes ago, Amphibian220 said: I remember having this pokemon in my card pack when I was about 12 years old. You got that face right! Thank you! I loved Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar. I think Pokemon are a great resource for me to practice animation. So expect to see more all year. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexanderle Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 @BooksandTrees I am nothing but impressed. I feel in the last couple of weeks you made a huge jump. Not only am I impressed by your skill level of 3d modelling - those animations are pretty much as good as they can get, but also by your abilitiy to act during states of relaxation. The next step will probably be not only to moderate yourself even more (same for me), but also to become this "effective" during days of more stress. Because there will be many more days of stress. Not only, when talking to your parents, but when not getting a thank you at work or whatever. It is the same for me, when I enter a lecture hall or when I would have to go to a party: It is like I am born again and I have to learn everything from scratch. Like, all the things, which are working fine and perfect in one condition are not working anymore in another condition. That will be probably the next step. But for now, I guess we focus on the one condition first. I expect to see many more pokemon. Can't wait to see a longer animation. 🙂 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNewMe2.0 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 (edited) Yep ghastly is looking good. I'm amazed you're spending 6-7 hours practicing animation. That's a while, good job. Hope you find your chill hobby. I guess mine is meditation, watching tv and reading. And sleeping if you count that . Edited May 4, 2020 by Erik2.0 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 5, 2020 Author Share Posted May 5, 2020 Today was very interesting. I woke up after almost 9 hours of sleep and realized I slept right through my alarm clock. I felt so wonderful. Not a care in the world. Work was easy, I ate well, had some ice cream since I was only at 1150 calories after 3 meals for some reason, and then animated some more. I made the Gastly move around for 15 seconds so that will be interesting. I'll start adding the smoke effect tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm then going to do the hypnosis and dream eater moves to end the video. So the whole thing will be around 30 seconds. My longest video ever. I think I might be able to do a second animation this month so I'm excited about that. My next project will be a Geodude so I can practice making arms and rigging those. It will be a comedy video for sure. I'm slowly going to be building my skills up towards making this 3-5 minute animation of a Pokemon comedy spoof. After that I'll probably start working on original content. I just want to stick with things I enjoy for right now so i can continue to develop the hobby. It's much more rewarding than video games already. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 5, 2020 Author Share Posted May 5, 2020 3 hours ago, Erik2.0 said: Yep ghastly is looking good. I'm amazed you're spending 6-7 hours practicing animation. That's a while, good job. Hope you find your chill hobby. I guess mine is meditation, watching tv and reading. And sleeping if you count that . Thanks. I think it will be healthy for me to practice it for 4-10 hours per week so I can keep going with it. I get so many ideas that I just want to keep going. Chill hobbies might just come back after the quarantine. Who knows. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandTrees Posted May 6, 2020 Author Share Posted May 6, 2020 Today was annoying. I hit snooze for over an hour like an asshole, wasn't motivated at work and barely got anything done, had a good lunch, attended a few meetings, and had a long therapy session. I made it over 7 days without porn again. I haven't wanted to watch it at all really unless I purposefully think about it. It's similar to video games now. If I intently think about gaming I'll get cravings. If I think about other stuff then I'm fine. I'm not aroused at all. I'm going to save any masturbation for arousal only and really work on diverting stress towards other outlets like exercise or music or something. My dad asked me to call him at 7 PM tonight to talk about his surgery tomorrow morning. He just wanted me to tell him jokes, but I was in a bad mood and didn't want to joke around. Plus, his jokes aren't the same as normal jokes. He wants me to make fun of people, which I stopped doing years ago. I was just being a supportive son and he didn't want anything of it. So I began telling him about some stuff that had been bothering me and he said he had to go after 5 minutes lol. It's just a little sad when both of your parents don't love you or care about you. I think I was born to keep them both company and idolize them. Unfortunately for them that's not my purpose in life. I dislike them both and believe my purpose in life is to improve the lives of others who need help, fix our infrastructure with engineering, and make the world a better place by working hard and making changes to impact others. I've just been a little lonely because of COVID19 and it's just painful when both of your parents don't care about you and never have. I talked to my therapist about this today. But it's already a well established fact of my life where I'm not really important to anyone in my life. But that is ok. I am important to some of my friends, some people on this website, myself, and my coworkers. One of the reasons I used to play games so much was to feel important. I wanted their attention and adoration. It wasn't a healthy way, but because of childhood and adulthood emotional neglect I found myself drawn to the communities. I asked my therapist if he thought I could handle playing NHL in moderation again. I told him I'm afraid that if I played it could potentially act as a gateway back into other games so I could feel less lonely and I'd be looking inward for attention instead of outward towards real people. He said there are some drug addicts who can drink alcohol in moderation and that suits them, but there are some drug addicts who do anything intoxicating and downward spiral heavily. I think I just want company, friendship, love, and attention. That's the only reason I want to play games again. I'm so lonely sometimes. My friends never understand. Sometimes when I get sad and lonely I just want other people to tell me they love me. I am competitive for people's attention, praise, adoration, and more because I never had it in my life. I've been so alone and sad for so long. Neither of my parents have ever loved me and it's just a shame. But that's something I can't bring into life. I can't really tell my coworkers and management to kiss my ass so I feel better. Talking to both of them makes me feel so upset about myself. I am thinking of cutting communication with both of them because I always feel bad after talking to them. It just makes me sad that I'm so alone. I guess a lot of us on this website are alone. We loved gaming for making us feel so included and have purpose in life. But what gaming addiction does is further separate you from reality. Hiding from pain instead of solving the pain and finding solutions. I miss having friends around me and joking around. I think we all are. I'm just happy some of my friends are still talking to me during the pandemic. I'm going to try and animate the smoke on my Gastly tonight. We'll see how it goes. I find hope and happiness in this hobby because I can express my desires with it. Although it's frustrating, I really find light with art that I can create. It compels me, completes me for a period of time, and gives me love. I watched the first episode of Hunter x Hunter tonight and it was great. I think I'll watch that show and maybe JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. I'm tired of watching reality shows. They stress me out now. Today I'm grateful for my therapist, my friends, my job, my coworkers, my food (I made a great dinner), my aunt, and myself for resisting games again and again as well as porn. I also didn't eat junk food or anything bad to deal with stress. I love myself and appreciate myself. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikar Posted May 6, 2020 Share Posted May 6, 2020 Don't worry. Life has a way of bringing people you need and you'll know once they'll arrive. You are important 🙂 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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