@heartfulSong1012
I'm a 18-year-old child who is starting on my journey slower than the others, because I was addicted to living in an unreal world in the past. When I saw your post title I couldn't help myself but read and reply, because it was the exact same word I had used to describe my addiction... But I did get over it in the end. However, I'll just be sharing my experience...Quitting wasn't difficult for me, fortunately, but the most terrible and hardest part was recovering from it. Now, I have quit for one year and four months, and this month being the fifth, and I haven't returned to what I felt before I ever sunk deep into that world. However, I already have my will set that I will never give up. I will keep trying new methods to manage my self, until I am exactly who I want to be xD.
In my childhood years, I was never been exposed to virtual realitiy because my mother was frightened of them. She had seen my uncle's downfall after my grandfather purchased our house a computer and my uncle got addicted to playing games on it. My uncle spent 8 years in university, barely passing the credits needed. Then he was jobless, so my mother made sure to never let them in my sight.
I moved to the capital of my country when I was 11. Now, I was where all the technology was and of course - I was becoming a teenager. My mother moved along with me, changing her job to a full time job at a hospital and loosing her grip on me. She had no idea how letting me go was the beginning of the end. I made new friends at this new school, and it all started in the new school's excellent IT room. I saw the boys playing Counter Strike, and it looked like so much fun, so I asked them to play. I was killed, again and again, but it the experience was so amazing. It was out of my world. I kept playing, sneaking into the IT room at lunch time, but soon, the thrill of the game became a frustration to win. So one day, I downloaded another first-person shooter game to practice my skills at home too. After that day I never played with the boys again.
I found an online buddy to play with. I became friends with his friends and joined his guild(clan), all the while acting like a younger boy. Luckily my voice is lower than a typical lady's voice. I remembered participating in one of the clan wars with my headphones turned on to full volume, listening to the enemies's footsteps and talking in the voice chat, when my mother barged in on me and pulled off my headphones and yelled at me. I was so mad at her, so embarrassed that my online friends would hear her. A few days later, I lied to my mother that I already quit, and changed my sleeping schedule to play later at night instead of during after school, after she has come home and gone to bed.
At school, I slept. At night, I played. I would keep this vicious schedule for a few weeks before collapsing. I would interchange the intense gaming period with a week of getting up to do some work (with gaming breaks) . My life was so heading for the end and my grades kept dropping over the years. I was so tired as I fought with my real friends and family, too. When I was 14, I decided to quit the shooting games. One month later, I became very addicted to reading online comics instead. My memory of my teen years are very hazy from the lack of sleep, but I know I scrolled through endless titles of comics until morning or whenever my parents were not around. When I see them I go mad angry and lash out at them, even when they just ask me about my day. Lol I really want to cry typing how I hurt them, they who loved me the most :(
I kept going through the same cycles of addiction and productivity, weeks where I focus on gaming and some on studying. When I was 15, I wasn't accepted into an elite school that was in my little goals. I didn't think much of it, but when school reopened over the year break, 7 of my girl bffs were missing, so there was only me and another friend from our group left. The 7 best-friends-forevers had moved to the elite school that I couldn't enter, and some went to study abroad. They had never told me anything about their plans, until I found out by myself that day when school resumed. Standing in the middle of the basketball court, I was still thinking that the teachers have forgotten to put one more class on the bulletin board. I asked the last remaining bff why they didn't tell us, and she told me that they told her, just not me. The last bff said, "With you always throwing a tantrum, why would anyone want to tell you anything?"
I felt so betrayed and sad. I stopped reading my comics and started taking extra classes. I wanted to make them see that I'll reach the same university that they do with higher scores. I studied 7.30am-8.00pm, everyday, grabbing a onigiri(Japanese riceball) for lunch and dinner to save time xD. My parents always supplied me with fruits and vegetables so I was not nutrient deprived. I made a new friend at school, and she was a very good person(e.g. never lying, copying homework or drink alcohol) with great taste and perseverance. I admired her because she was good and I liked to compete with her in studying which sometimes made her feel sad. My grades were amazing that year, and studying, being punctual, exercising and being nice was so easy and fun, with her around. Of course, after a year, we were put into different rooms, and I, feeling lonely, went back to my comics.
Next I played mmorpgs. Then I played mobas. And I made friends and joined guilds there again. I did some online dating and met a few weird people. Perhaps he still stalks me today. In the meantime, I couldn't understand whatever was going on in my physics or chemistry class at all, once I was in my final year. "What value was there to living when death is inevitable?" I thought, "If I die, the Earth will still revolve, scientists will keep finding out more, and everyone will go on the same."
There was absolutely no value to studying in my mind at that time, but in the gaming community, I was welcomed and glorified with my extravagant skins and costumes. People praised me for my gaming skills. I had people who would accept me for what I am, and buy the things that I wanted for me in the game. In the game I was a beautiful elf queen but in reality, I was becoming a nobody. My family fought a lot during that year. I'd wake up to my grandfather and mother yelling at each other and things being thrown around. My mother found out that I was playing games again and she was broken and very, very angry. Well, the child she had always protected from games was now a gamer. My mother resigned from work and fled to my childhood home, where she lived with my father. I was finally free to game without limits, and that, was the complete end of my future plans to become a doctor, that I had built since I was a little girl, who used to listen in wonder when her mother answered her questions about the human body, in specific details and reasoning. At this point I didn't even know the name of the topics we were studying about in class.
I had a very strict English teacher who had praised me once in the past. There was this final project about self-discovery, that was due. I felt like I had to finish it, and somehow, I finished it, probably because he once praised me. They were multiple intelligences tests, Meyer-briggs, the statistics of the jobs's employment and salaries review, et cera, which we had to make a presentation of our results on. The remnants of the few coals of my dead dream sparked fire after I did those quizzes and - I quit gaming... for two weeks. I was very stressed and wasn't managing my sleeping time because I was scared that I would fail my finals. I started hearing things that were not there. However, it's hard to not believe in some external force when some family situations arose again in that same month. Finally, I dropped out of school.
Instead of studying to rekindle my dream, the motivation died down after a few days. I went back to playing games, but it was my last failure of quitting! I moved away to live with my other family on other parent's side, and didn't take any electronic devices with me but ahaha, I had nothing to live for. Without my gaming friends, I had lost my society. I locked myself in my room, twisting and turning in the sheets, sometimes crying sometimes sleeping, as the days slowly go by. I tiptoed downstairs at night to eat leftovers on the table and took my grandmother's snacks to my bedroom. I didn't want to see or hear anyone. Soon, the tears stopped, and I became numb, like bag of useless slime. Whatever people say to me, I couldn't connect. The only thing that kept me from suiciding and leaving this illusionary, temporary, fragile and endlessly repeating world was my father's words, "I didn't love you this much for you to die."
I understood the thoughts of suicidal people, in first person experience, then. In my case, I wanted to go away from this world, from myself and before everyone dies in front of my eyes. I wanted to go away from this hole inside my heart and this sorry-ness from the pathetic excuse of a human I am. "Oh, how great a joy it would be if I was relieved of it," I thought. I didn't care about physical pain of death, but this gaping hollowness that I feel was so, so terrible. It wouldn't end, and I also felt elevated having myself in a constant state of pain for some reason. It felt righteous to punish this thing that has hurt every single person who came to love her T T.
I grieved for my future, for my old friends, for my old mother when I was younger, for the persistent bright child who I somehow killed and for the hole in my heart that was always there. I pretended to laugh, smile and get disturbed, but I was never touched by them.
Despite my claims at my horrible performance in school, I wasn't too bad off by the numbers. I transferred to a new school. I was alone for so long I stuttered and made so many awkward pauses when I talked. I couldn't maintain a conversation. A few guys started special talking to me, but I knew what it was because although I look innocent, I have dated online xD. My private activity of wallowing in self-pity and crying alone still continued, but there was this one guy who was on my radar. Literally! Not like I wanted to hunt him down! When I was in class, somehow I can always pinpoint where he was, exactly. I could hear every word he said at school. I could hear the footsteps he makes. I could hear his guitar practice every day in which I find myself eating lunch faster for. One day, dressed in our local costumes, I lost it when he made a joke about picking me up in his car to school because I was always late. And it seemed my brain grew wings and flew away then.
This dude gave me the best gift after my parents gave me my life. It was not the feelings or inspiration he inspired within me to study again or start boxing, but it was his rejection that slammed my brain back into my head. My pink world turned back into a normal color, even though before I met him it was so grey. I swore in text messages at him for telling me things and acting shy but I stopped myself from going too far into the enemy-zone. The first week after rejection was not so hard, I kept a low profile and stopped talking to him. But after a week, I started seeing every man's face as his face and ouch, it really hurt. My old bff, the only person who told me the truth of what a moody person I was ^, took some of her new friends to talk to me on the phone to keep my mind off him. It really helped to clear my mind. I'd sleep in the phone calls because I didn't want to let those thoughts of the guy in my head haha
When my head had cleared, I realized that what I had been looking for is now is here. I was only interrupted by thoughts of the boy many times too often, but the hollow emptiness in my chest was miraculously gone! I quickly made up my mind, now that I feel better, to not let myself descend into that pit of sorrow and depression again. At least I'm going to maintain my heart to be joyful at this very state.
I looked into Buddhism. The Buddha of Buddhism said that "to stop love(lust), just stop building the bridge". I believe it means that we just stop thinking about him further than what we see of him. He's not the prince of my dreams, he's another human who I shouldn't have sworn at. I thought of him way too much, that he has become something else in my head.
In yoga, a teacher said that its because two has become identified as one, and now I'm tearing the halves apart. No wonder it hurts. I believe this happened when I thought I knew what he was talking and thinking about. I honestly already had an image of a future we could have had together in my head. Yes, I incorporated his future into mine. Additionally, the teacher said that our bodies is a complete organism on its own, but society teaches us that it's not. I suppose movies, especially romance-action movies, often give us the fantasy that two means complete. Even my Disney storybooks keep talking about true love. I would guess yoga teachers might call love overrated?
I've meditated for many hours, just the being-in-the-present method, where one just sits and closes their eyes. I picked up a hamster from the local pet shop to make a constant daily habit and distract me. I've started my own version of neat journaling every few days. I do jump rope and lift weights if I don't go boxing. I keep pulling my heart together if it falls apart. It took so much of me to like that boy so much that I was so happy, I'm not going to let my efforts go to waste. I will choose to be happy.
And I shall not let anything get in my way of life. I have chosen. I'm going live a hardworking, honest and happy life doing the career I want that I will study to pass its admissions this year.
I started off as a child who wanted to try things, but now... I've played so much and I've realized the stupidity of the virtual dream world. I think you have to play until you get bored of it. On the other side of the screen a person has created the algorithm for your imagination to be forever lost in. However, try this as you shower: turn the water on a little colder and walk into it. It's more than 3d, the water jumping off your skin, the moisture in the air, water rolling away along your body and the sound of it. It feels amazing, and it's more stimulating than any game can make me feel.
The Steps I Made Up Myself For Me
1. Fall in love with doing something- I love studying to learn new things. I deserve to get to do this good thing.
2. Have effort to do that something- I will keep doing this until I succeed, constantly.
3. Keep my heart wanting that something- I keep myself conscious that I want this. I will not want other goals more than this one, single goal.
4. Write the reason why I'm doing that something for me to read every time I look at my bathroom mirror!- Each time I see it, I try to find a deeper reasoning between what activities lead to success in it. I keep finding more reasons and outcomes when I brush my teeth and look at the mirror.
5. Make easy habits like getting to bed on time with no reasons(excuses)!- Make habits that must stay until they almost become muscle memory to wake up and do it.
6. Exercise & Eating- I exercise often so I have the energy to overcome the demons in me. I eat well because I am what I eat. Good antioxidants will be in my bloodstream so my body can help me fight it off 😣
