Staying on track, don't spiral out of control

[masquerade]

Hey everyone,

 

I've been away from video games for roughly 3 years and improved my life so much, getting out of my moms house, getting a girlfriend, getting my career to a great point. For the past 4 months though I've been on and off gaming. Imagine a day where I game for 5+ hours and then right after uninstalling steam, trying to quit, then a few days later reinstalling... rinse and repeat. It's starting to impact my career progress and my self-awareness, I get less positive stuff done and I'm very frustrated by that.

I am a musician and recently feel like I lost the excitement about making music, I often have to push myself to produce and use opportunities to stop doing it. Now I am wondering if gaming is just messing up my fun levels for other activities, or if it's the other way around and I started gaming again because I actually am not excited about music anymore.

Today I want to try and find out. I will quit gaming and will try my hardest to make it stick this time.

I could really use help from an accountability partner (via Whatsapp, Mail, etc) so please reach out if you feel the same. I am a 29 year old male from Germany.

Edited November 23, 2019 by masquerade

[masquerade]

I relapsed yesterday. Deleting this shit again today. Back to day 0.

 

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by masquerade

[masquerade]

I only had 2 games installed so it was easy to get rid of both of them. Thank you for your replys Ismail, they help

[dirac]

I know how you feel bro. I have the same problem at the moment. I am trying to figure out if its a certain type of game or if it is gaming all together or if I just had a stressful time and needed a relief. I think the best thing is to do something called "elimination diet" its usually supposed to help you find out food allergies but I also think its the best way to figure out what the exact problem is. If you feel like its just one game try quitting only that game for a week or two and see how you feel. If that doesnt improve it try cutting out all games for 1 month and make a journal where you write down how you feel everyday. After the month revisit the journal and you will see how you felt. Its very possible that gaming is the issue but its also possible that gaming is just a manifestation of another problem. Maybe you are scared of taking the next step in your career? Maybe you need some inspiration ? Maybe you should try to go at music from a different angle? Maybe your relationship isnt that fulfilling anymore?

But always remember no one is always motivated. Even if music is your life its normal to have some periods of time where you dont feel like doing it that much. Its ok it will pass!

But either way I wish you good luck with quitting gaming ?

[masquerade]

14 hours ago, dirac said:

I know how you feel bro. I have the same problem at the moment. I am trying to figure out if its a certain type of game or if it is gaming all together or if I just had a stressful time and needed a relief. I think the best thing is to do something called "elimination diet" its usually supposed to help you find out food allergies but I also think its the best way to figure out what the exact problem is. If you feel like its just one game try quitting only that game for a week or two and see how you feel. If that doesnt improve it try cutting out all games for 1 month and make a journal where you write down how you feel everyday. After the month revisit the journal and you will see how you felt. Its very possible that gaming is the issue but its also possible that gaming is just a manifestation of another problem. Maybe you are scared of taking the next step in your career? Maybe you need some inspiration ? Maybe you should try to go at music from a different angle? Maybe your relationship isnt that fulfilling anymore?

But always remember no one is always motivated. Even if music is your life its normal to have some periods of time where you dont feel like doing it that much. Its ok it will pass!

But either way I wish you good luck with quitting gaming ?

Thank you for the reply ? I hope you are able to figure out what exactly it is for you. Since the relapse on Tuesday I've been able to stick with not gaming and my motivation for other things is rising and I feel a lot better. Starting a new song is still difficult and it looks like it's not only caused by gaming, but cutting out the gaming helped me having time and mental capacity to figure out how to solve that problem.

[masquerade]

Update:
Things have been good.  I've been going through a breakup, which made things more difficult recently but I haven't played for 2 weeks now which is great and I've been able to accomplish a hell of a lot. Pushing my life forward feels great. My girlfriend also held me back and it took some time to break free of that and I feel like without her and without gaming I can develop at a faster pace, a pace that I like a lot more.

So on the music front I was able to really hone in, but an area where I want to increase my learning speed is social skills. I've been making progress over the last 3 years, it's insane how shy I was back then and how much I let people push me around. I've definitely developed a lot since then but there is plenty more to learn, I am now functioning in the social world, but want to take that to thriving.

I will be making detailed goals and focusing on certain aspects at a time. For the following 1-3 weeks I will focus on not being so submissive during conversation, this includes:

"pity" laughing at things I don't find funny
saying yes combined with nodding in an overeager & hectic manner, as opposed to doing these things when I actually am interested in what the person is saying and or agree with it.
Not feining interest in every topic another person brings up, being ok with showing disinterest, disapproval instead of smiling and nodding to everything
 

Edited December 10, 2019 by masquerade

[Amphibian220]

On 12/10/2019 at 12:25 PM, masquerade said:

Update:
Things have been good.  I've been going through a breakup, which made things more difficult recently but I haven't played for 2 weeks now which is great and I've been able to accomplish a hell of a lot. Pushing my life forward feels great. My girlfriend also held me back and it took some time to break free of that and I feel like without her and without gaming I can develop at a faster pace, a pace that I like a lot more.

So on the music front I was able to really hone in, but an area where I want to increase my learning speed is social skills. I've been making progress over the last 3 years, it's insane how shy I was back then and how much I let people push me around. I've definitely developed a lot since then but there is plenty more to learn, I am now functioning in the social world, but want to take that to thriving.

I will be making detailed goals and focusing on certain aspects at a time. For the following 1-3 weeks I will focus on not being so submissive during conversation, this includes:

"pity" laughing at things I don't find funny
saying yes combined with nodding in an overeager & hectic manner, as opposed to doing these things when I actually am interested in what the person is saying and or agree with it.
Not feining interest in every topic another person brings up, being ok with showing disinterest, disapproval instead of smiling and nodding to everything
 

Great targets set masquerade,

Do you have a job/profession aside from playing music? Germans are known to excel in sciences, especially medical professions.

Edited December 11, 2019 by Amphibian220

[masquerade]

@Amphibian220 Thank you for the reply, it's great to know that someone is reading and helps me going. Producing electronic music is my full time job.

[Amphibian220]

Do you mean technical production work or as a singer?

[masquerade]

Producer

[TheNewMe2.0]

Hello, 

Thats a cool job you have. Congrats on progressing in your career and social life. I’m sorry things didn’t workout with your gf but am also happy for you as moving on sounds like it’s working for you. I recommend starting your new posts with 

 

Day ## 

 

It makes it easier to keep track of what post your at and it’s motivating. I like how you’re working to be less submissive conversationally. Being okay with disagreeing and not nodding are things I work on too. My client at my job pushes me to play games with him and it’s hard to continually refuse that pressure. But being on here makes me feel more confident and reassured that I’m doing the right thing. Does music and socializing take up your time or do you do other hobbies too? I find reading and journaling to be good ways to spend time and I’m looking to see what other members do.

 

[masquerade]

@Erik2.0 I feel you, it can be hard pushing back against someone. I'm so used to bring submissive, sometimes when I try to not be i so it in an awkward fashion, but I'm super happy that recently I just accepted and am ok with messing up socially sometimes in order to learn.

As to your question: producing takes up tons of time, the rest currently goes into working out, cooking and eating with a bit of socializing in the form of playing boardgames with friends. I'm searching for another social activity where I can progress my social skills faster, as that's not going at a pace I like

[TheNewMe2.0]

Hello,

I think you’re doing good. I’ve been looking for groups to join to socialize too. Church or hobbies on meetup are what I’m looking at. Just taking it one step at a time.

[masquerade]

Quitting has been going well, I stayed on track so far since November 27 (2019). Today I want to quit watching Twitch too. It didn't prove to trigger much ins terms of cravings but I recently looked at my time spent per month on different programs and the twitch consumption was too high for me to continue. I could be doing something better with that time, so I'll be doing that from today forward.

Edited January 3, 2020 by masquerade

[BooksandTrees]

Hi,  

You should really be posting these updates in the journal portion of the website. I think you'll find more interaction and help others out as well there. This section is more for introduction posts like your first one. 

Make a journal! They're great and helpful. I'll follow it as well when you make it.

Matt