Jump to content

NEW VIDEO: The EASIEST Way to Stop Gaming

Chronicles of a Fighter


Arthur

Recommended Posts

Hey guys. 

In the past month I slowly got back to my bad habits (haven't gamed myself, but I was on twitch and watched my brother play dota). I haven't meditated in a while, I stopped planning out my days, I started ignoring some obligations and people, got into a rut. I'm here today because I recognize I need to revert this, and I miss everything I had going on in my life while I was here.

Even though I haven't played video games, this might as well count as a complete relapse in my book because I watched gaming almost daily for the past 2 weeks and I relapsed on porn. Nothing special triggered this. I'm fine, my family is fine, thank you @Ikar for reaching out. I just slowly let my self-destructive, irresponsible side get more and more ground, I bet most of you know how those things go.

I need this forum and community to stay on track obviously. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with my daily entry.

 

Edited by gargamel
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Entry 21

Another mostly wasted day, but I'm here so that's something. Mentally I'm 70% as bad as I was in the first few months of 2020 (when I was playing WoW). Anxiety is pretty strong. It makes me want to divert attention to interesting things and run away from my recent shortcomings and obligations. 

Yesteday I didn't watch any gaming content, and I didn't watch porn. So that's a positive step forwards. But I postponed meditation until I decided I'm too tired to even do it and I also wasted most of my day on youtube. Washing dishes and helping with dinner was the only positive thing I've done.

See you tomorrow

Edited by gargamel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have such a predictable pattern of behaviour when I start going downhill. If I had a girlfriend I would confide in her and ask her to intervene whenever she sees that I might be going in that direction. I will not ask my friends for help here because I am ashamed and I think I would ask too much. I cannot ask my family because they know about my patterns but they never intervened besides expressing worry, which never helped. All of them have their own things to worry about.

It's a behavioral pattern I got into pretty early in life, maybe as young as 6-7 y.o. It's triggered by a simple transgression or disruption of routine. Things like:

  • Getting sick for a week and temporarily disconnecting from my routine
  • or recklessly (out of impulse, distraction or laziness) ignore something. Such as skipping class because I felt really tired that day
  • have something happen to me that will divert my attention for more than 2 days

When things like this happen, I'm in a pretty high risk of going into an unhealthy downward spiral in which I start procrastinating and diverting my attention. 3 days in, and I maybe start to ignore some social interaction. 5 days in and slowly I stop thinking about my long term goals and I start indulging into instant gratification. 10 days in and anxiety kicks in - I am ashamed I ignored someone for a week, and I tell to myself "I'll answer later today, I need to collect myself first", but instead I just get sucked in more distraction and I repeat this process for another day or two. At this point my obligations start suffering. I ignore another class, and I start to shut off completely. If you see me in person I'll probably deny having any problems, and I'll divert conversation to an impersonal topic.

Usually, what kicks me out of this loop is getting so worried I completely fucked up my life or relationship that it actually makes me try to fix the situation.

I got badly into this loop two times this year. Before I joined this forum, and for the past month. I got slightly into it after my summer exams and slightly into it before my fall exams. At least 5 times this year I stopped the loop around 5 days into it, usually by coming back to this forum and reminding myself of where I'm going.

Edit: Considering my first crisis this year lasted for around 40 days, my summer slips for around 15 days a piece, my short spirals amount to 20ish days in total, and this rut lasted for around 30 days already it, seems I spent around 120 days, or 4 months in total struggling this year. Out of 6 months being on this forum, I had issues with this 2 months and a week in total. Those are some staggering numbers.

Edited by gargamel
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, gargamel said:

When things like this happen, I'm in a pretty high risk of going into an unhealthy downward spiral in which I start procrastinating and diverting my attention. 3 days in, and I maybe start to ignore some social interaction. 5 days in and slowly I stop thinking about my long term goals and I start indulging into instant gratification. 10 days in and anxiety kicks in - I am ashamed I ignored someone for a week, and I tell to myself "I'll answer later today, I need to collect myself first", but instead I just get sucked in more distraction and I repeat this process for another day or two. At this point my obligations start suffering. I ignore another class, and I start to shut off completely. If you see me in person I'll probably deny having any problems, and I'll divert conversation to an impersonal topic.

Usually, what kicks me out of this loop is getting so worried I completely fucked up my life or relationship that it actually makes me try to fix the situation.

And the further into the loop you get, the more difficult it is to get out of it. Dealing with real-life tasks with a mental handicap both in terms of ability and falling behind. Struggling is a trigger, rinse and repeat.

I see a lot of similar trends that you wrote in myself. It would be funny how obvious it was, if it weren't so dangerous. Best of luck, I'm glad that you also feel like these forums have been a help. I've noticed the same.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

@Lampshade yes. Exactly. I'm not surprised you relate. I feel a lot of us here have experienced this unhealthy loop.

That being said. It's been over 7 months since I played any video game. I'm really proud of that. Right now I'm crawling out of the last unhealthy cycle. I've been proactive, I've reconnected (to a point) with my social circle(s), and got back to reading and writing.

In the last few days my life frustrations resurfaced in full. I remembered all the subtle and not so subtle ways in which I suffered throughout my life. A lot of injustice and primarily - lack of understanding. I suffered so much out of being misunderstood and neglected. 

I'm glad those memories resurfaced. I feel like I've been surpressing them too much. I feel more human today because of it.

I really hope all of you are well.

Edited by gargamel
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...