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Taking Control - Take 2


NixAvernal

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So here I am again. It's been nearly a year since I posted here before, and honestly it was going well. I relapsed a bit ~45 days in and picked up some mobile games but I still managed to study properly, have an active social life and find things to do other than be glued to a screen the whole day.

...then the Coronavirus happened and upended my life. Now I'm stuck back at home, away from my university in another country. Being stuck inside, I've gone back to spending way too much time online and playing games. I'm trying to find excuses to do anything but study and it's taking a toll on not just my marks but my mental health. I'm basically become a shut-in who wants to get out but can't find a reason to.

So I'm cutting off gaming again and this time I'm going for the full 90 day detox. I've already ditched my PC and typing on a laptop which can't really run any games, and blocked about every online game website. I'm trying to get habits that I lost because of the lockdown and finally get rid of gaming once and for all. 

My current question that I have for today is if I should ditch Discord? Honestly it has been the only way that I could keep in touch with my non-gaming friends, though it is easy to access gaming websites with it still.

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2 hours ago, NixAvernal said:

So here I am again. It's been nearly a year since I posted here before, and honestly it was going well. I relapsed a bit ~45 days in and picked up some mobile games but I still managed to study properly, have an active social life and find things to do other than be glued to a screen the whole day.

...then the Coronavirus happened and upended my life. Now I'm stuck back at home, away from my university in another country. Being stuck inside, I've gone back to spending way too much time online and playing games. I'm trying to find excuses to do anything but study and it's taking a toll on not just my marks but my mental health. I'm basically become a shut-in who wants to get out but can't find a reason to.

So I'm cutting off gaming again and this time I'm going for the full 90 day detox. I've already ditched my PC and typing on a laptop which can't really run any games, and blocked about every online game website. I'm trying to get habits that I lost because of the lockdown and finally get rid of gaming once and for all. 

My current question that I have for today is if I should ditch Discord? Honestly it has been the only way that I could keep in touch with my non-gaming friends, though it is easy to access gaming websites with it still.

Ditch discord. It's just a lobby to talk online and you'll see others gaming. 

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Day 1 - Morning

Some days I'll be doing a two-part journal when I feel like I need to vent... and right now I really do feel like I need to vent.

Yesterday, I had a falling out with my family in relation to my possibly bad marks (results are due tomorrow). My pandemic-based relapse had caused me to possibly fail 2 courses, and they pretty much put their foot down and said that I can't continue university anymore (as in they won't pay for my tuition). I'm not sure if they'll change their tone but if they don't, then I feel even more depressed than before. University was one of the only things that I had a clear goal with - graduate - and without that... I pretty much have nothing left.

Also, with more reflection, I realised that the pandemic had upturned my entire progress on having a life. Before, I used to use the fact that I could leave and go outside as a way to destress but now I'm back at my home country and my usual methods of destressing (going to a gym, taking a hike) are pretty much non-existent. So I turned back to the one thing that I had - games. And now I'm paying for it.

Sorry if this is a bit heavy handed, but I really needed to take it out of my system. Not sure what will happen tomorrow but hopefully it's for the best. 

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Sorry I skipped a day yesterday, results were out and I wasn't happy with them. Wasn't in the right mindset for a journal.

After removing video games from my life (again), the days are starting to drag out slowly. Honestly, it feels nice and scary at the same time. Just a few days ago I'd probably be complaining that I don't have any time for anything - now I have too much time for everything! It'll probably change once uni starts again in 2 weeks time, but I think I'll be glad I have time.

The brain fog is still there sometimes, but I'm powering through one day at a time. 

I'm going to go de-clutter my room now - Headspace says that it's a good way to get focused and I never bothered to do it before. Well, first time for everything. 

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Technically Friday's Journal - Day 5

Got a bit of a mental breakdown yesterday because of reflection about my marks, and actually ended up with the shivers. Through the entire day my mind kept going back to video games, but I kept telling myself "No, this is my last chance to do something about my life and I won't fuck it up because I want to be fake-happy". It was a long 6 hours from lunch to dinner but I managed.

Relearning mediation is going okay I guess. My ability to focus has actually gone down but I'll keep doing it everyday and try to get back to 10 minutes without interrupting myself. 

Japan studies are going well too. 

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Hi mate from across the ditch! Glad to see you are still pushing through with your quest.

You haven't updated whether you ditched discord or not, what was the final verdict? I can 100% recommend you walk away from Discord, twitch, YouTube Gaming, or whatever else that you track gaming information on. It will trigger you, even subconsciously, and will especially warp your thoughts if you look at it straight away when you wake up in the morning, setting the tempo for the whole day. It will just make this process harder!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Day 14

Sorry about not talking for a while, my mood hasn't really improved till recently (both because of my actions and some external things related to my non-gaming hobbies). But school's just started again, and I'm actually glad to have things to do now.

I also published a very short (301 word) fanfiction. Didn't get many views but honestly doesn't matter - helped me get over my funk.

One thing I want to improve is my mediation habit. Been forgetting to meditate for a while now. 

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Hello NixAvernal. I remember when my Discord addiction got to a point where it was even worse than my video-game addiction, and I was only a member of one server. Quitting Discord did make me feel lonelier but it also gave me peace of mind. It was a creative writing server where barely any writing or editing was done. Most of the people were bitching about their lives, arguing about politics, or spam-posting their fetishes. There was individual user drama, mod drama, and server versus server drama. Purges and counter-purges. Factions all fighting cold wars over something meaningless. The name 'Discord' literally means evil argument god, corrupter of households or something. How obvious can they get? Its like all your friends download the popular new app: Satan. "Hey, have you heard of Satan? "Satan's great." "You've gotta download Satan."

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