A Look into the Life of a Crazy Dutchman

5 days without obsessive screen usage.

Yesterday I got myself a Lego train. Really awesome addition to my future city.
I also got my grade for mathematics, it was pretty good.

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And a week from now I will not have gamed for 500 days

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Keep up the good work man!

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Some quick thoughts.
I feel bad for showing when I’m feeling bad on TS.
I don’t think I’m quite ready yet to give up TV.
I really dislike myself, no longer hate though.
I get upset with myself when I get sad that someone I didn’t know died. It doesn’t match my autism. Apparently it’s the end of the world that I’m becoming sympathetic…

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Now some happy stuff. My manager told me I was OP. OverPowered. He wanted to let me work the door, because if I’d work the store floor, we’d be finished too soon :smiley: I ended up working the store floor anyways, but faced(putting the products to the front of the “container” and putting the label to the front) perfectly, which takes lots of time.

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0 days without TV.

Alright. Time to stop bullshitting myself. I can stop watching TV. Jan, you don’t have to wait until The falcon and the winter soldier has been released. You can give up marvel. You can give up Grey’s anatomy. Stop being so pathetically desperate buddy, it doesn’t look good on you. And don’t forget, you managed to kick mirage realms, GTA v and Minecraft like a boss. Because you’re the boss over your life. Step up

I didn’t relapse yesterday as I allowed myself to go nuts in the weekend. But it felt off. I’ve left the denial phase yesterday. I realized how desperate I was to not give up TV. Making deals with myself. Disappointing myself. I’m not upset with myself over it though. Denial is normal. I’m just glad I left that phase behind.
I will not give up TV entirely. I will watch movies in social settings. For example when I’m with my dad, because it has helped tremendously in healing the disintegration of our relationship. I will only watch if asked and not propose it myself. I will bring games to social settings to make the odds of me watching TV smaller. I never watch tv at my best friends place, because I bring boardgames. My dad used to hate boardgames, but now he’ll do anything with me because he’s just happy I gave him another chance.

Anyways, this morning I’m going to my best friend’s place. We’ll play games and we’ll do an Easter egg hunt or something this afternoon. After that I’m going straight home, because my sisters will be there to celebrate my brother’s birthday. I’m looking forward to today :slight_smile:

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Hey Jan, it’s so interesting to read about your thoughts and somehow it reminds me of me bargaining with drinking or not. This is not meant as an offence. Or explaining my disturbed eating habits from time to time. They are always symptoms of me being not well, not feeling the feelings or feeling but fighting them. Hope you get a bit what I mean. Of course it’s clear as we often discussed, alcohol and other drugs can be avoided completely from our lives whereas eating and using digital media cannot (anymore).

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I’ve actually come to realize last night, that abstaining from TV is possible, though very hard. There’s no action involved in watching TV. For gaming. You need to move fingers, to game. With drinking, you have to grab the bottle before you can drink. TV is just moving your eyes towards the screen. You don’t necessarily relapse when someone drinking in the room. Or when someone is gaming in the same room as you. Though it does cause cravings, you don’t get an actual taste. With TV, you hear it. It intrigues you. All it takes is a glance and I’m sucked in. I won’t count a glance as a relapse though.

Oh yes, absolutely. That’s exactly what has been going on.

None taken, like -10 offense.

This is good stuff, I’ll have time on my hands now, might just as well use it for mindfulness. See what’s really going on.

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Today was good.

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Does it depend on the type of tv? I wouldn’t consider myself a screen addict exactly but when it is the long uni vacation I pay for netflix and allow myself to binge watch, and during the semester delete my subscription and only watch news/topical comedy. I liken this to my disordered eating, I avoid bingable food like the kids mini chocolate bars, but eat regular meals and would eat a treat in a cafe with friends.

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I can obsess over everything on tv. In the morning, there’s a loop of the morning news and I’d just watch it replay 4 times before going to school. I can obsess over movies too, but I don’t replay those straight away. I do have to finish them once I started them, which can be quite problematic. I have the same thing with tv-shows, once started, I must finish them. As for the vacation. If I don’t have any priorities and I don’t have it affect my health, I might catch up on all marvel tv-shows. I might not have the best advice though. I am the only screen addict in recovery I know, so it’s uncharted territory for me, if not for everyone. Alcoholism has been around for millennia, the big book for decades. Screen addiction maybe 15-20 years.

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Gaming-addict does not have a nice ring to it, I might start calling myself a gameaholic…

Why should it have a nice ring to it?

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For no real reason, I just like it better that way

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1 minute without obsessive screen usage.

Next time step away from the situation idiot…

I wasn’t asking for advice for me, I was asking about you and relating it to my related but slightly different experiences. That is tough that u can’t separate different genres of tv, or maybe it makes it easier as abstinence is the only way. Good luck.

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0 days without TV.

The day that I haven’t gamed for 500 days, I will watch TV early in the morning until 7:30 AM. Absolutely ridiculous idea, but I can’t stand to not have the counters lined up. And I can’t stand not counting the next 4 days in my total time. By the way, this is my autism speaking and not my addiction. I think I might also convert my posts in this thread into a book someday…

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Congratulations on 500 days!!! :tada::tada::tada:

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Thanks, still 4 days to go though :smiley:

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I am currently studying for the chemistry test that I have tomorrow first thing in the morning. It is super boring and I’m not retaining anything… I have 50 pages to study. I’m at page 2 now… Screw chemistry and screw all chemistry teachers at my school. They are the most chaotic boring bunch I have ever met. And they teach the most boring subject there is. This is gonna suck.

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