Dear Diary...

[Ikar]

54 minutes ago, Mohammad said:

Wow! it took 10 years for you to get here. That's right. I have been trying only for two years. I've got to try again.

I agree with @BooksandTrees. I don't have a record of how many times and when I tried to "curb" gaming by an hour or two to get some exercise or studying done, but it eventually came to the point where I had enough pain and quit cold turkey. I had to take responsibility for my life and I wanted to explore in more depth the things in life I got a glimpse of while still gaming.

The progress of quitting is more continual than most people think. Maybe you cut your gaming time in half the last year. That's fair progress! Compare yourself to who you were before, not someone else.

[BooksandTrees]

I ate a lot of ice cream today and feel terrible. I don't know why I did it. I can't even work. So stupid. 

[BooksandTrees]

I'm feeling a little better. I need to be better tomorrow and make up for lost productivity. It's a big week and I need to deliver. 

[Amphibian220]

@BooksandTreesI was thinking about breaking eating discipline when I had this idea.

What about US army rationing SOP? That measurement is designed to keep soldiers fit, without excess fat or sugar in their diet and sufficient amounts of carbohydrates, protein etc. what about closely monitoring food intake in accordance with that?

I have broken my food discipline recently. I’ll try to see if I can set these limits up to prevent overeating. The upside is that you know you have eaten the right amount and there is no way to get confused with this.

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Amphibian220

[BooksandTrees]

44 minutes ago, Amphibian220 said:

@BooksandTreesI was thinking about breaking eating discipline when I had this idea.

What about US army rationing SOP? That measurement is designed to keep soldiers fit, without excess fat or sugar in their diet and sufficient amounts of carbohydrates, protein etc. what about closely monitoring food intake in accordance with that?

I have broken my food discipline recently. I’ll try to see if I can set these limits up to prevent overeating. The upside is that you know you have eaten the right amount and there is no way to get confused with this.

 

I just started tracking calories again like I did last year and threw away my junk food. Also more water. 

[Bird By Bird]

On 1/13/2021 at 2:37 PM, Amphibian220 said:

US army rationing

That sounds like a fun and interesting experiment to try @Amphibian220. While more expensive than normal food - I think the additives they put in MREs to survive hostile conditions and keep soldiers in fighting shape may show improvement in your life. During your research, you might hear about stories like the Vomelet but don't be fooled because its actually super tasty and given an ironic name as a joke.

[BooksandTrees]

Today I'm 116 weeks free from gaming and 118 weeks free from social media. Well, technically yesterday, but I was busy yesterday lol.

I've been working a lot on a difficult project at work that stressed me out but I've been making sure to charge overtime and dealing with it. I get annoyed with a few things going on but I'm just going to roll with it. Life is too short to beat myself up over worrying about little things out of my control. I was thrown into a dumb situation and I'm just gonna move on. I don't like poor communication. I don't like how things go from positive and negative so fast. I keep getting mixed signals from whether I've done good or bad and I strongly dislike feeling like I'm in an indecisive position. 

We'll see what happens. 

Otherwise I'm looking to just relax today and enjoy free time for once. 

[BooksandTrees]

My stomach is bothering me a lot tonight. I ate like shit all weekend with pizza, ice cream, and not healthy Chinese food. I know there is healthy Chinese food, but the kind I ate was not healthy. Not doing a race thing here, please calm down.

I ate vegetables, healthy grains, low fat food, and lean meats today and my body is just dying. It's strange because I used to eat this all last year when I lost 30 lbs. I've been eating a lot of junk food the past few weeks due to stress. I ate a whole buffalo chicken pizza Saturday and Sunday and then a whole pint of ice cream after. I didn't go to the bathroom for a whole day after that. I think it's just a reaction from the poor diet the past few days.

Work has been very stressful and I have to start studying again soon. I also don't really look forward to doing anything after work. I left work early today because I started early and I just sat there for a while. THere was nothing I wanted to do. I didn't want to do anything creative. I ended up texting friends and family and felt better after. I think I just needed to cool off.

But right now I am just annoyed because my mid section keeps having hot flashes of cold and then burning hot. It's like acid reflux is back or something. IDK.

I've also felt little motivation to post on this website the past few weeks. I'm sorry for not posting more or in people's journals. I just feel a little run down of late. I'll try to rest more and treat myself healthier and see what happens. Therapy tonight fortunately.

[Amphibian220]

What is your main sporting activity? Do you work out on a daily basis?

[DaBest]

It's all good bro. This is the crappy, dark time of year anyway. One step at a time. 

[BooksandTrees]

The world is a better place today. 

[BooksandTrees]

Today I'm 117 weeks free from gaming. I've gotten into a bad habit the past few months where I just sleep as much as possible on Saturdays. I go to bed early, wake up late, lounge on the couch, and take a nap later.

I can't tell what to think of this trend. On one hand I want to get angry at myself for not being productive today, but on the other hand I'm excited that I could finally rest after a long week. The past few weeks have been so busy for me and I just look forward to this rest. I think as the days have been darker I've trended into the direction of sleeping more and resting. Also, the past year has been so busy for me at work. So it makes sense that a simple 2 week vacation wouldn't fully recharge me in December. It's more of a sine wave function where I think I just have more energy from April to September and less from October to March and it just has certain amplitudes. All animals go through this and many animals hibernate in this time of year. 

I've decided not to be too upset. I still meal prepped 8 meals today, did laundry, had a video call with my mom, then had a virtual board game night and fun session with friends. So it's not like today was a failure or anything. I guess I still wish I could have spent maybe an hour studying, playing the drums, exercising, or doing some form of art or writing.

I've had a very long series of discussions with my therapist about doing more things in moderation such as doing a hobby for 1 hour and switching to something else. I get stuck in a mindset of "do I want to do art for 8 hours? No? Then I'll just sleep and do nothing all day." That's really crushing me I think. As former gamers I think we struggle with doing anything for less than 1-2 hours and justifying its usefulness in our lives. We've binged games for 6-24+ hour periods of time on average for years and decades. It's so difficult to say "I had a lot of fun doing something for 30 minutes and then did something else" 

I find it funny how I'm over 2 years into quitting full time and I still struggle with time management. I hope if anyone is reading this that they can maybe find some comfort that I didn't just solve everything at once and find the magic potion to quitting games. I just deal with urges and persist on. Most days aren't a struggle anymore.

I'm going to set reminders on my phone, like an alarm clock, where I just keep reminding myself that I can do an activity for a little bit or something.

I also found something interesting: I've been making memes of my coworkers and posting them on our company website as a joke. They're not offensive memes or anything and are management approved. They're meant to boost morale in the office since we're working from home. I've learned more in Photoshop during the past 2 weeks of making memes than I did in downloading that huge class on Udemy because I actually have a desire to make something. If I want to do something that I can't do yet, I look up a tutorial online and remember it after. 

I'm going to start doing this for drums and animation. I'm just going to try and learn a song on the drums instead of learning everything perfectly for years. I want more fun and I'm smart enough to be efficient. 

In response to @Amphibian220, no I haven't even been doing anything active. I think being active would give me more energy in the mornings but I haven't been disciplined or even considered doing it more than 1 day per week. I'll try to address this soon with some yoga.

And I apologize to people for not really being as active on the forums. I've just been doing a lot of thinking the past few weeks. Not about gaming or anything. I've just been thinking about how certain aspects of life make me feel and how to understand them. I consider this a form of spiritual thinking or active meditation with relationships to humans and activities.

I've been studying how certain actions make me feel both good and bad. I've been learning a lot about myself and I think it will culminate into something that really binds energy and regulation into my life.

[TheNewMe2.0]

Glad to see you're doing well. Your life sounds like you have a lot going on.

[Amphibian220]

sometimes you get doubts of whether you should control yourself so stringently, but then did you ever notice how much discipline changes your environment? 

“When you’re at war, you know that everything is going to go against you. The terrain, weather, enemy, mistakes in communication etc. So you try to preplan and do everything right with as much pressure as possible to win. When you attack with that much force and intelligence, you’ve got the enemy on the run with his back turned towards you” paraphrasing Jocko Willink.

i also thought on Erik’s post about craving comfort. He correctly remarked that this is what video games give us. The thing that I want to crave is conquest and it is a thing that is often confused with comfort. We are not on a conquest to achieve comfort. That would kill all purpose. We are on a conquest to find out what this life is. Can’t express it beyond that. If you want that long enough it starts to kill all fears one by one.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Amphibian220

[Pochatok]

21 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

As former gamers I think we struggle with doing anything for less than 1-2 hours and justifying its usefulness in our lives.

Oh my jeez you just crushed my universe with this sentence lmao. Never thought about this, but I am so sure you are correct to some extension! I actually noticed that the more I enjoy doing things in smaller bits, the more I can play games in moderation (when I relapse- been a month since the last time), although I still prefer not to play at all. 

Have you heard of a process called "metacognition"? I think it could help you appreciate small things more.

[BooksandTrees]

7 hours ago, TheNewMe2.0 said:

Glad to see you're doing well. Your life sounds like you have a lot going on.

Thanks, I actually decided to tackle it a bit today. I got a lot done that I'll highlight below.

5 hours ago, Amphibian220 said:

sometimes you get doubts of whether you should control yourself so stringently, but then did you ever notice how much discipline changes your environment? 

“When you’re at war, you know that everything is going to go against you. The terrain, weather, enemy, mistakes in communication etc. So you try to preplan and do everything right with as much pressure as possible to win. When you attack with that much force and intelligence, you’ve got the enemy on the run with his back turned towards you” paraphrasing Jocko Willink.

i also thought on Erik’s post about craving comfort. He correctly remarked that this is what video games give us. The thing that I want to crave is conquest and it is a thing that is often confused with comfort. We are not on a conquest to achieve comfort. That would kill all purpose. We are on a conquest to find out what this life is. Can’t express it beyond that. If you want that long enough it starts to kill all fears one by one.

I noticed that as well and made some important progress today that I'll mention below.

3 hours ago, Pochatok said:

Oh my jeez you just crushed my universe with this sentence lmao. Never thought about this, but I am so sure you are correct to some extension! I actually noticed that the more I enjoy doing things in smaller bits, the more I can play games in moderation (when I relapse- been a month since the last time), although I still prefer not to play at all. 

Have you heard of a process called "metacognition"? I think it could help you appreciate small things more.

I haven't heard of it. I have considered and experimented with what you mentioned with gaming in moderation before I started my 2+ years away. I couldn't moderate online games because I was so hooked on being the best in that universe of gaming. I think it might work with single player games that aren't open world and end within 1 hour or 3 hours tops. I haven't heard of metacognition but I think it's valid after reading about it.

Today was good. I struggled a bit in the morning because I knew I wanted to do a lot of things. I thought it might be easier to relax and do nothing. I did that but felt groggy.

Instead, I put some relaxing music on and did yoga for about 45 minutes. I then went and finally used my workout machine for the first time in 2 months (wow, that went fast). I felt great. I did a full body routine and felt so much better. I then cleaned, took a shower, and then studied for a whole hour. 

I'm so proud of myself. I really want to get in the habit of studying for an hour a day for 4 days per week or so and taking my time with this. I don't want to cram again. I'm also not going to watch the video lectures they gave and just do the problems this time. I'm going to pass this test. I know it. I want that paper.

I still have 5 hours before bed too. So I think I'll make dinner (I meal prepped yesterday, but want to make more) and then relax for the night. I will consider writing a bit, trying some art, or the drums for 30 minutes also.

[Mohammad]

Congrats @BooksandTreesfor 117 weeks from gaming! It is motivating for me to see how far you came 🙂

[BooksandTrees]

On 1/26/2021 at 12:22 AM, Mohammad said:

Congrats @BooksandTreesfor 117 weeks from gaming! It is motivating for me to see how far you came 🙂

Thank you. We're getting there.

[BooksandTrees]

I'm going to make a new commitment to myself starting tonight:

I'm going to push myself to do more exercise and mentally stimulating hobbies.

Why am I doing this? I'm doing this because I was reading an article posted by an athlete talking about how she gained energy over time after exercising more frequently. The body produces more chemicals in order to constantly feed the energy requirements for exercise and mental stimulation. 

I remember this from when I exercised 4 days per week. I had much better focus at work, more energy, and just more initiative and drive to do something.

I'm doing this because I am in quite the rut. I've got no energy at all. I sleep, wake up, and want to go back to sleep. I slept so poorly two nights ago after a very traumatic argument with both of my parents. I spent all of today sleeping. I slept for 10 hours last night, then I slept for 2 hours at lunch, then I left work early to sleep for another 3 hours. 

I realize I'm tired because of how much energy I conjured in order to defend myself and logically discuss my emotions with my parents and set more solid boundaries. That took a lot out of me. But I have nothing inside of me anyways. Even before these arguments I've just been so tired. That one day I exercised made me feel so much better. 

Living at home and not being around anyone makes this more difficult. It's so hard to motivate yourself after some time. I miss seeing others. I miss connection. I miss love.

I have a date tomorrow night with a woman I've been talking to for 4 weeks now. I'm very excited. She's a complete angel and sweetheart. I am so lucky. We will see how it goes and I'm hoping for the best. My friend introduced us and it's been like two magnets stuck together ever since. I've never met anyone with as much in common as me or the same personality. It's utter magic. I'm so grateful I can't put it into words. I'm going to hug her tomorrow and let her know how happy I am.

[Amphibian220]

Wishing you to get well.

I think reviewing the progress on your goal makes you perceive that goal a lot more as something real and track where you are. I do this by adding reps to various workout routines, reading books and articles about fitness.

if i’ve got doubts as to whether a workout will work and my plan is too ambiguous, I will not follow through on it.

About motivation when living alone. In my teens my coach wanted me to become a professional boxer. The training discipline that he instilled stayed with me even after i stopped training as a boxer. For example, I’d go to the sea each morning and swim for half an hour. The thing that pushed me to do it was the expectation that all this training would come in handy at a time in future.

So right now there is a lull in the action for you, but you should use it to get yourself ready for a major fight.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Amphibian220

[BooksandTrees]

Quick update. I keep having violent dreams and doing things I regret. I can't sleep at all and keep waking up. The anxiety is crushing me. I just have major fear. 

I keep thinking of people I never talk to anymore and not being able to contact my parents ever again. I keep having to repeat high school and I keep forgetting my locker combination. My parents attack me and I have to defend myself and then regret my actions. I had one part of the dream where another bird was attacking my bird so I crushed it and it felt bad and asked me why I hurt it. I felt terrible. I was defending my bird who loves me.

At this point I'm just afraid of sleeping. I need a hug and companionship and family at this point. The virus is really making me feel alone. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by BooksandTrees

[BooksandTrees]

5 hours ago, Amphibian220 said:

Wishing you to get well.

I think reviewing the progress on your goal makes you perceive that goal a lot more as something real and track where you are. I do this by adding reps to various workout routines, reading books and articles about fitness.

if i’ve got doubts as to whether a workout will work and my plan is too ambiguous, I will not follow through on it.

About motivation when living alone. In my teens my coach wanted me to become a professional boxer. The training discipline that he instilled stayed with me even after i stopped training as a boxer. For example, I’d go to the sea each morning and swim for half an hour. The thing that pushed me to do it was the expectation that all this training would come in handy at a time in future.

So right now there is a lull in the action for you, but you should use it to get yourself ready for a major fight.

I'll reply more later. 

[DaBest]

17 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

Quick update. I keep having violent dreams and doing things I regret. I can't sleep at all and keep waking up. The anxiety is crushing me. I just have major fear. 

I keep thinking of people I never talk to anymore and not being able to contact my parents ever again. I keep having to repeat high school and I keep forgetting my locker combination. My parents attack me and I have to defend myself and then regret my actions. I had one part of the dream where another bird was attacking my bird so I crushed it and it felt bad and asked me why I hurt it. I felt terrible. I was defending my bird who loves me.

At this point I'm just afraid of sleeping. I need a hug and companionship and family at this point. The virus is really making me feel alone. 

Man, everyone's really feeling it right now aren't they? Fuck the winter, and fuck all the other bullshit going on. 

We are here for you and want you to get better. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this right now. It sucks being on an emotional roller coaster like that. 

It sounds like you're working from home, so do yourself a favor tomorrow and get some time out of your house while it's sunny out to do absolutely anything. Walk, workout at the gym, buy something, whatever. Just appreciate being outside and leave all the negative thoughts in your apartment. Nature doesn't give a damn about your parents, or about your past regrets, and neither does time. It just is. While you're out, let that have time for you to just focus on whatever it is you chose to do, but tell your negative thoughts they need to take a break for an hour, and that you can wrestle with them when you get back to your apartment, if you want. It's your brain and you can choose to think about what you want, when you want, if that makes any sense. It's a hard skill but it's possible. 

Good luck bro, you will get through this. Fuck the haters.

[BooksandTrees]

Today I'm 118 weeks free from gaming and 120 weeks free from social media. This week was highly unproductive at work because of the emotional issues I experienced. My therapist said I have PTSD. I get embarrassed to say that because I often reserve that condition for soldiers or victims of extreme abuse etc. I put that much respect into the mental illness that I don't feel I deserve to be associated with it because I know there are others who have hurt more than I have and they deserve more help. I also feel a lot of narcissists blurt out that they have PTSD or OCD like it's a common cold or a headache. They don't actually have those conditions. They don't struggle with it every day. They sicken me. But everyone knows they're full of it. People with those conditions don't brag about them. They'd give anything to not have those conditions anymore and just want to live life without them.

My coworkers supported me while I was away for a few days and I feel a lot better. I also had a very productive conversation with my parents and set strong boundaries with them. I want them to be actual parents and not friends. I don't think it's good to just be friends with your kids. There needs to be a degree of separation no matter the age or it causes hierarchy differential issues and developmental issues.

I also have a second date tonight with this wonderful woman I've been talking to for about a month. I'm excited. She has really been a positive influence over these past few weeks and I'm enjoying getting to know her.

Today my goals are to study for an hour, relax for a bit, clean, and stay true to myself. This week my goals are to continue doing 2 days of exercise per week and 2 days of studying per week.

 

On 1/29/2021 at 12:38 AM, DaBest said:

We are here for you and want you to get better. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this right now. It sucks being on an emotional roller coaster like that. 

Thanks for the support. I didn't get a chance to reply but I think I've been learning new ways to manage it. I didn't relapse with games, I didn't even watch porn. I ate a little junk food but really all I did was relax, communicate with those I trusted, and work on some art projects. I'm happy.

On 1/28/2021 at 2:10 AM, Amphibian220 said:

So right now there is a lull in the action for you, but you should use it to get yourself ready for a major fight.

That's my mindset now. I'm going to use this lull as a chance for me to study for that exam (major fight) without any external factors hitting me. I think it's the right decision.

[DaBest]

Hey, glad to hear you are in a better place right now. I can understand how you might feel embarrassed and unworthy of a PTSD diagnosis, but that doesn't just apply to soldiers. It varies and can apply to any significant trauma, at least to the perception of the person experiencing it. Your brain isn't evolutionarily different from a soldier's brain. Abuse survivors routinely experience PTSD.  I haven't been diagnosed with PTSD, but there's some aspects from that that I feel like I--or really anyone--could identify with. Oftentimes, I can experience some kind of a varying stimulus that puts me square back in my 8-year-old self's shoes, and it's weird because if you asked me an age for that shift, it's 8 and not any other age. That was also the same time where my world came crashing down in various ways. I don't think that's coincidence. Full-blown PTSD? Maybe not, but using the understanding of the multiple ways that the brain processes trauma is helpful in dealing with those feelings, at least when I notice it.

The beauty of this is that you now know the nature of your enemy a little better, and that puts you in a much better position to fight it. I'm glad you and your therapist have been making progress.