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Did gaming cause drastic changes in your mood?


CornishGameHen

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Hi. 

In my quest to determine if I am addicted or not to video games, I happened to do some reflection this afternoon about how my personality changed as I played an MMORPG.  Now, I'm already a testy person by nature, I just have a short fuse sometimes.  But when I grouped up with people to complete a difficult dungeon, I'd easily get irritated over and above my norm.   My irritation would sky-rocket from zero to ten in under thirty seconds, especially if we were up against a tough pull.

 I didn't rage at people in the game, as in swearing left-right-and centre.  But boy did I show colors I didn't want to show.  I could empty a room with my tone of voice sometimes. 

And it wasn't easy to calm down either.  I'd feel tension in my neck, shoulders, ringing in my ears as if my blood were boiling.  This wouldn't dissipate unless I went for a long walk afterward, which I rarely did.  I'll bet my blood pressure went through the roof too. 

I hated myself for it.  I spent some years practicing anger management strategies, but all that went out the window while playing video games with other people.

That's one of the reasons why I want to tone down video gaming, or stick with single player games after my detox, if I decide to moderate.  Or do away with gaming altogether because it drastically influences my mood in a negative way. 

I also teamed up with people who eventually broke and became irrationally angry too, due to the stress of a difficult fight.  And I know these people weren't normally like this.  It was a revelation to observe, and really disturbing sometimes. 

And we call this a 'game'?  Yay, what fun. 

 

Edited by CornishGameHen
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On 10/14/2019 at 12:07 AM, CornishGameHen said:

Hi. 

In my quest to determine if I am addicted or not to video games, I happened to do some reflection this afternoon about how my personality changed as I played an MMORPG.  Now, I'm already a testy person by nature, I just have a short fuse sometimes.  But when I grouped up with people to complete a difficult dungeon, I'd easily get irritated over and above my norm.   My irritation would sky-rocket from zero to ten in under thirty seconds, especially if we were up against a tough pull.

 I didn't rage at people in the game, as in swearing left-right-and centre.  But boy did I show colors I didn't want to show.  I could empty a room with my tone of voice sometimes. 

And it wasn't easy to calm down either.  I'd feel tension in my neck, shoulders, ringing in my ears as if my blood were boiling.  This wouldn't dissipate unless I went for a long walk afterward, which I rarely did.  I'll bet my blood pressure went through the roof too. 

I hated myself for it.  I spent some years practicing anger management strategies, but all that went out the window while playing video games with other people.

That's one of the reasons why I want to tone down video gaming, or stick with single player games after my detox, if I decide to moderate.  Or do away with gaming altogether because it drastically influences my mood in a negative way. 

I also teamed up with people who eventually broke and became irrationally angry too, due to the stress of a difficult fight.  And I know these people weren't normally like this.  It was a revelation to observe, and really disturbing sometimes. 

And we call this a 'game'?  Yay, what fun. 

 

You have to do some deep introspection here. What about these dungeon challenges made you angry? Break that down. Then think about your life. Are you in a situation in life, or have you experienced many situations in life, where you constantly don't succeed in ways you wish you would? If this happens, do people around you benefit from it? Do you wish your life was different where you would have a husband, better job, more interests, and see yourself in a better light?

I ask these questions because a lot of gamers have aspirations to be better humans. They want more friends, better friends, a better body, a better life, more money, a better job, etc. They don't make the changes necessary in life and often use gaming as an escapism to hide from their anger and issues in life. This anger is deep-seeded after years of swallowing their aspirations. Each year they put these aspirations for a better life on hold they get more angry. When people play video games as an escape from their feelings of shame and regret for not living a better life they expect pure happiness and relaxation. The issue is when someone messes up in a dungeon or on a team and you lose a game you were looking forward to playing. Then you erupt on them with anger you normally never see.

That's why I bring up introspection. If you see yourself riled up with visceral hatred and lamenting others in ways you'd normally never act, then I challenge you to investigate your emotions and see whether or not you're harboring any ill will towards yourself for decisions you are ashamed of or regret making or not making. 

I'm in no way saying you have what I just described. I had what I described. You asked us if gaming changed our moods. That is my answer for you. It's worth thinking about. Maybe you have the same thing. I know you're introspective enough to be patient and understand yourself so I'm curious to see what you think. Spend a few days or weeks thinking about this. Maybe even see a therapist to delve deeper into your life if you aren't already speaking to one. That really helped me. 

Good luck

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Just now, CornishGameHen said:

Look @BooksandTrees, I appreciate your response, but I don't have 'hatred' feelings.  It's irritability.  Please don't make a mountain into a mole hill.  Thank you.

I see your irritability right here. You took 2 minutes to read my post and attack me for it. If you read my quote correctly I say "If you find yourself riled up..." where "IF" is implied in a situation of anger.

After your response here I am done speaking to you on this website. That was very rude. I understand you're going through the early stages of quitting games, but that was uncalled for when I've been very kind to you on this website and your forum post.

You asked for an opinion and I described it. I didn't accuse you of feeling something. I'm challenging you to investigate your emotions of anger and break it down so you can answer your own question about your anger and feel better about it. After this response I think you do have an anger problem.

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@BooksandTrees  I just think that you're over-analyzing.  I don't have to agree with what you say.  

I guess I don't have a habit of responding to someone's journal with a list of questions about self-analysis.  It comes across as being very intense and a lot to read.  My main emphasis was asking if people related to the feelings I had.  

Anyway, you've been fairly supportive.  And I thank you for that.  If you choose to block me, that's fine.  It's probably best if my disagreement causes you emotional hurt.

Edited by CornishGameHen
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I would say yes it changed my mood. It wasnt necessarily that i would feel anger or frustration, but more of the opposite. Stone cold dead or no feeling. Extreme indifference to what i was doing. 

Now with not gaming for almost a week, i feel more of a spectrum of emotions and haven't felt anything like when i gamed. Depression/sadness, yes, but even those feelings haven't come close to the sheer indifference i felt in recent times gaming. 

Anyway, just my two cents on the subject, hope you have been well @CornishGameHen

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  • 2 weeks later...

I know what you mean man. I am a super chill dude I never get angry at people or anything. But online games. dude. Especially dota and league make me so mad sometimes.

The communities in competetive online games are probably the worst out of all games and things in general. Those people can be so toxic they wish you cancer because you made a slight mistake. And many people say those communities are just like that you just have to accept that, but think about it. If you would go to the gym and people come to you and say "i hope you die you piece of shit" because you didnt put a weight back or something like that you would never go there again. But for some reason we keep on going back to those gaming communities, not realising what it does to us.

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Didn't notice it till I found games can be addicting. My heaviest gaming phase was online gaming, maybe 12 hrs or more a day. It involved a lot of trading too but I was into ripping ppl off / sharking. I use to skip school a lot and sometimes i'd go home and game if nobody else was around. With that said - I wasn't a great student. Was always causing trouble and didn't care. I mainly had problems with teachers but I was a bully too.

Though I was a lot more extroverted back then, i'd say I was just restless most the time. It's a dramatic change from now and it definitely wasn't just because of gaming alone (home issues). Had lots of friends and wasn't a loner or like a regular gamer - I was a troublemaker. Nobody knew I gamed and those who did, didn't know I gamed obsessively.

Years before I found this place, I had already quit multiplayer games.

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On 10/19/2019 at 11:32 PM, BooksandTrees said:

You have to do some deep introspection here. What about these dungeon challenges made you angry? Break that down. Then think about your life. Are you in a situation in life, or have you experienced many situations in life, where you constantly don't succeed in ways you wish you would? If this happens, do people around you benefit from it? Do you wish your life was different where you would have a husband, better job, more interests, and see yourself in a better light?

I ask these questions because a lot of gamers have aspirations to be better humans. They want more friends, better friends, a better body, a better life, more money, a better job, etc. They don't make the changes necessary in life and often use gaming as an escapism to hide from their anger and issues in life. This anger is deep-seeded after years of swallowing their aspirations. Each year they put these aspirations for a better life on hold they get more angry. When people play video games as an escape from their feelings of shame and regret for not living a better life they expect pure happiness and relaxation. The issue is when someone messes up in a dungeon or on a team and you lose a game you were looking forward to playing. Then you erupt on them with anger you normally never see.

That's why I bring up introspection. If you see yourself riled up with visceral hatred and lamenting others in ways you'd normally never act, then I challenge you to investigate your emotions and see whether or not you're harboring any ill will towards yourself for decisions you are ashamed of or regret making or not making. 

I'm in no way saying you have what I just described. I had what I described. You asked us if gaming changed our moods. That is my answer for you. It's worth thinking about. Maybe you have the same thing. I know you're introspective enough to be patient and understand yourself so I'm curious to see what you think. Spend a few days or weeks thinking about this. Maybe even see a therapist to delve deeper into your life if you aren't already speaking to one. That really helped me. 

Good luck

I've bolded the parts where you talk about anger. If you re-read what you said it shouldn't surprise you that he felt you were accusing him of having anger issues.

On 10/14/2019 at 12:07 AM, CornishGameHen said:

Hi. 

In my quest to determine if I am addicted or not to video games, I happened to do some reflection this afternoon about how my personality changed as I played an MMORPG.  Now, I'm already a testy person by nature, I just have a short fuse sometimes.  But when I grouped up with people to complete a difficult dungeon, I'd easily get irritated over and above my norm.   My irritation would sky-rocket from zero to ten in under thirty seconds, especially if we were up against a tough pull.

 I didn't rage at people in the game, as in swearing left-right-and centre.  But boy did I show colors I didn't want to show.  I could empty a room with my tone of voice sometimes. 

And it wasn't easy to calm down either.  I'd feel tension in my neck, shoulders, ringing in my ears as if my blood were boiling.  This wouldn't dissipate unless I went for a long walk afterward, which I rarely did.  I'll bet my blood pressure went through the roof too. 

I hated myself for it.  I spent some years practicing anger management strategies, but all that went out the window while playing video games with other people.

That's one of the reasons why I want to tone down video gaming, or stick with single player games after my detox, if I decide to moderate.  Or do away with gaming altogether because it drastically influences my mood in a negative way. 

I also teamed up with people who eventually broke and became irrationally angry too, due to the stress of a difficult fight.  And I know these people weren't normally like this.  It was a revelation to observe, and really disturbing sometimes. 

And we call this a 'game'?  Yay, what fun. 

 

The bolded parts above are things you described about yourself that are typically associated with anger. This is what @CornishGameHen was responding to, and it seems to be the emotion that you feel is most closely associated to your gaming.

 

I'm not pointing any of this out to make anyone feel bad. Only showing that sometimes we need others to help us identify issues we have that we don't even realize we have. This happened to me when I started reading about the INFP stress response. It wasn't until then that I realized I was chronically stressed out, and can now take steps to deal with it.

Now, I'm not saying whether or not you have an anger issue. That's up to you to decide. I would, however, encourage you to try to keep an open mind when people post something. Everyone here is coming from the same place and we are all trying to help each other out. I used to get REALLY defensive (and sometimes still do!) when people began to point things out about me that aren't necessarily a positive thing. However, the things that we get hyper defensive about are usually the things that we need to work on the most.

It's really up to you to reflect on what was said and how you feel, and then decide if the thing really is something that you need to do something about.

To respond directly to your query, I used to get really angry and selfish when playing video games. There were two occasions specifically while playing WoW that forced me to take a long look at myself and make some changes. Yes, WoW actually encouraged some personal development for me... lol.

During a dungeon run I was leading my group around trying to complete my quests and being really obnoxious about it. My guild mates were PM'ing our guild leader and he gave me some lessons about how to handle people. The second time, I was being a real jerk during dungeon runs with my guildmates, telling them how much they suck, etc. (yeah... sometimes I was that blunt) until they finally decided they had enough of me. I wasn't kicked out of the guild but if I wanted to earn their respect I had to become a more compassionate person, and I did.

Otherwise, I did a lot of throwing objects around, slamming controllers on the ground, etc. and my brother and I got into a few fights as well. It spilled over into my real life as well. For a long time I was extremely short tempered and very stubborn.

To be honest looking back I'm not even sure when all that changed... lol. I just over time calmed down a bit and here I am today.

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On 11/2/2019 at 10:13 AM, seriousjay said:

 

I've bolded the parts where you talk about anger. If you re-read what you said it shouldn't surprise you that he felt you were accusing him of having anger issues.

The bolded parts above are things you described about yourself that are typically associated with anger. This is what @CornishGameHen was responding to, and it seems to be the emotion that you feel is most closely associated to your gaming.

 

I'm not pointing any of this out to make anyone feel bad. Only showing that sometimes we need others to help us identify issues we have that we don't even realize we have. This happened to me when I started reading about the INFP stress response. It wasn't until then that I realized I was chronically stressed out, and can now take steps to deal with it.

Now, I'm not saying whether or not you have an anger issue. That's up to you to decide. I would, however, encourage you to try to keep an open mind when people post something. Everyone here is coming from the same place and we are all trying to help each other out. I used to get REALLY defensive (and sometimes still do!) when people began to point things out about me that aren't necessarily a positive thing. However, the things that we get hyper defensive about are usually the things that we need to work on the most.

It's really up to you to reflect on what was said and how you feel, and then decide if the thing really is something that you need to do something about.

To respond directly to your query, I used to get really angry and selfish when playing video games. There were two occasions specifically while playing WoW that forced me to take a long look at myself and make some changes. Yes, WoW actually encouraged some personal development for me... lol.

During a dungeon run I was leading my group around trying to complete my quests and being really obnoxious about it. My guild mates were PM'ing our guild leader and he gave me some lessons about how to handle people. The second time, I was being a real jerk during dungeon runs with my guildmates, telling them how much they suck, etc. (yeah... sometimes I was that blunt) until they finally decided they had enough of me. I wasn't kicked out of the guild but if I wanted to earn their respect I had to become a more compassionate person, and I did.

Otherwise, I did a lot of throwing objects around, slamming controllers on the ground, etc. and my brother and I got into a few fights as well. It spilled over into my real life as well. For a long time I was extremely short tempered and very stubborn.

To be honest looking back I'm not even sure when all that changed... lol. I just over time calmed down a bit and here I am today.

I understand what you're saying.  At the same time, though, to be blocked and told that you are rude is another transference of 'anger' in my opinion, especially since what we write can often be misinterpreted without other non-verbal social cues.  

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I noticed most of the things people already wrote here myself.

Everyone in the Gaming world want's to be "known, respected and loved".
That is because video games give you much power over people, with very little effort.
They give you a set of people who choose the same game, so your automatically in some sort of "club" where all the cool people hang out.
All the above is the reason gamers want  (was true for me) to be "more respected" than normal people.
And I noticed that pattern for many different people I got to know in the gaming days.
Applying the social constructs of the gaming society to a normal community will never work.


Anger, no self-control, burn outs and depression is what gaming did to me.


But the biggest change for what I have noticed about myself is:
"Not feeling empathy and not being able to follow a conversation and keeping up concentration."
I needed to learn "normal conversation" and "empathy" first, before I got to know people.


I do not blame games, I blame myself.

Edited by creationlist
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