Gloom and how it gets that way.
 

Well... I sit here after my first year of college and look at what I have become throughout the first 19 years of my life. For many things I am proud... for many things I am regretful.

I am a great friend, brother, and son. I have a loving family and some good friends. My family is financially stable and I just enjoyed an all expense payed trip through my first year of college courtesy of my father. My parents are divorced-- their conflicts not tamed but amplified by their separation. My little brother is 9 years old and he is what I care about and love most in my life. He is a great kid but seems to be a bit depressed for a 9 year old. He doesn't have many friends, there are no kids to play with in either my dad or mom's neighborhoods. All in all though, I think he'll do fine. My grandparents have all died, my dads siblings are all still married, my moms siblings are all divorced. All in all the worries and troubles I face are nothing spectacular.

I don't have a girlfriend, and I haven't even done anything with a girl since last September when I last saw my ex girlfriend. After her I just haven't been interested, because I am still hopelessly and unattainably in love with her. In all of my numerous friendships I haven't been able to build close enough bonds to get another human being to open up to me. I cannot be taken seriously or something... I am often under appreciated or scapegoated. People are often very judgmental of me, and vocally so like they can fucking change me themselves or something. I say I am under appreciated and all that shit, and it certainly isn't because I'm jaded. In truth, I am only realizing this upon a bored, tired reflection.

There is some sort of lingering depression inside of me and I can't quite put my finger on it. Sometimes I have thoughts people would consider worthy of institutionalization. I often find myself putting on a mask or a face for the world to see, because maybe I am just afraid that if I don't I will be rejected for what I really am. I am often socially insecure but behave in the way you might have seen me behave when I was active on these forums. I almost create an image of myself and become it, and retreat to my reality whenever I am in my own privacy. We all do this to some degree, but I have come to realize I perpetuate insane fake lives to keep the different characters that I become separate.

I don't know if I could consider myself trustworthy, but I can definitely without a shadow of a doubt say that when I do things I do them with a sense of justice in my mind. I often find myself silently taking on burdens to make easier the lives of others... this is a problem. For example my roommate, I discovered, had a lot of problems with me that he wasn't vocalizing, but only vocalizing to mutual friends. They brought it up to me, so I silently bent to what he would consider a perfect roommate just so he would be happier. It was the worst few months of my life. I love the kid, he's a great friend... but my personal flaws caused me great stress.

I take on burdens like this in all areas of my life, sometimes I feel like it is enough to just make me collapse. I am afraid to do just what makes me happy, I continue to live vicariously through the joy of others. I don't know if I am happy with what I have become... but I can say that I am sort of impressed by my own strength and persistence. I haven't really described in depth some of the sacrifices I have made for others, but some are outright ridiculous.


My biggest problem right now has been my increasingly strong addiction to World of Warcraft. I was playing 16 hours a day at one point, and now I have pretty much snapped out of it. I am breaking away from the game but for some disgusting reason I feel this need to perpetuate my situation as a raider in a top end guild working on cutting edge new content. I have so many friends and so many people who would love to spend time on me and I have wasted 150 days of my life playing that game.... in barely over one years time. I used to justify my playing of Warcraft in a philosophical way. I told myself that I couldn't find others that were like me in the real world, and the only minds that I could find myself enjoying spending time with were those I met online from the vast stretches of the world. At the peak of my addiction, I almost met a girl from the game in real life. I at least had the sense to break that off before either of us got emotionally hurt.

It has become quite clear to me that the immense stress of my real life has been caused by my ability to lose myself in the world called Warcraft. I could simply do what I "had" to to play the game more, so I could live my fake life to my wildest of dreams. In some sick sense I had become more my Warcraft character than myself. I need to have the strength to fix that, and eliminate that aspect of my life and make peace with who I really am in the real world. I realize that there are opportunities for great happiness out there, and I am throwing them away. I don't know if I will have the strength to do this or not, but I know that no one can help me.



I just thought I'd share that with the Zelaron community. Afterall, the last part is probably the reason I had no time to post here. So what do I do now.... I have a raid at 8:30 EST.. hmmm I guess I'll just go for now.

I honestly didn't read it(I'm headed out right now, so I only skimmed it)

I've just very recently decided to "quit" WoW. I realized that I was spending so much time progressing my character when I could have been spending that time progressing myself IRL. The game was taking way too much of my time(and I was just a casual raider.)

I was progressively getting worse and worse IRL, getting more stressed, more irritable. I could handle playing WoW for a while, but I kept pushing shit to the side to do later and then I had a pile to deal with.

I'm not going to play the game nearly as much now. No raiding, no playing every day. I'll play when I feel like playing, and I'll probably just PVP or level an alt or something. I can't afford to spend 4 hours playing the game at once, every day for a few days.

I've also wanted to play other games but I couldn't, and I'm now working on that. I've been wanting to play D2 again, Baldur's Gate 2, San Andreas, KOTOR, Halo, etc. But I never had time when I was playing WoW, because I felt like I was WASTING time playing those other games.

The way you feel about WoW is the way i use to feel about Halo. I have calmed it down a huge amount and my life is beginning to turn around for the better. I hope that everything works out for you dude

Thanks.

I don't know... not all of my problems are WoW related... WoW just provides the escape. I have a lot to make right in my life. I need to stop underachieving and stop living for other people.

WoW was pretty much just taking too much of my time, and making me a slacker when I wasn't playing it. I've got potential to be "great" but I choose to be "good enough."

I'm sick of being "good enough."

Your last sentence summed it all up. You can't run your life with other people's intentions in mind. Be who you are and what you want to be, no matter what people think of you. Ultimately, you'll be happier that way. You may make your friends happier for a limited amount of time, but wouldn't you like to be happier on a regular basis? Do what you want to do, fuck what other people think.

I'm not quite sure how WoW ties into all this, but you need to play less of it. Being addicted to ANYTHING isn't good. You need some balance in your life. Maybe set aside a time a day (or less) for WoW. Schedule your life around the important things you have to do, not WoW. Try to make your day busy so you aren't tempted to get on WoW and sit there forever.

Well, the main problem with WoW, is once you're at the level cap, pretty much anything takes a good amount of time to do.

Raiding, takes 3+ hours at a time.

Even just running regular instances with people takes usually 2 hours, there are a few that only take an hour if you're with a good group of people who all know each other and are pretty coordinated.

PVP is really the only thing you can do in a short amount of time, that and either farm money or do quests for money.

The game gets to the point that it's only function is as a time sink, and for Blizzard, that's a good thing, but for the players, it can cause problems.

I can play Diablo 2 for 10 minutes and have fun. On WoW, it would take me 10 minutes to even start having fun.

Exactly.

Yeah, I mean... that's a big problem with WoW.

My raids are six hours long. That's 5 days a week... that's a fucking lot. I mean, it is a trap really. I can't play when I want, or for how long I want. I have to conform to some insane raiding schedule that 24 other people depend on me for. People create their own little fake reality inside that game, and it's just disgusting. I want to get to the point in my life where If neccesary I could exist if everything technological just died out and it was just me and other human beings that I love surviving or something like that. A natural state I suppose.


Here's my big problem though. I have determined that WOW serves as my escape...the idea that my much needed escape won't be there anymore is terrifying. There is a lot in life I'm afraid of, but mostly being alone and being bored. I need to stop playing the game... I just... don't know how I can.

Still, he needs balance. Take time out of every day to do something more productive than WoW. Being good at WoW won't mean shit 5 years down the road. Creating and reinforcing friendships now could mean all the difference to you 5 years down the road.

It's hard to balance WoW with life.

Other games, sure. WoW is too much of a time sink.

I can play Baldur's gate for 30 minutes or less, save my game, and go do what I need to do, come back later and finish whatever I want to do. You can't do that in WoW, especially if you raid.

The main problem I had with raiding was, I had to plan 4 hours out of my life to play a video game. And these 4 hours had to be consecutive.

I get home ~5:30, raid at ~6:00, finish ~10:00 or later, and it's time for bed.

So, anything I needed to do in that time doesn't get done, I grab fast food for dinner(3 nights in a row.) My health started deteriorating, and I started having to catch up on shit.

I can spare 4 hours to play video games, but not 4 consecutive hours. I have things I need to do.

Real life friendships > WoW + friendships you get from that game.

No computer game should be the downfall of your social life. Period.

Good thing you're giving up WoW. My boyfriend sits in front of his computer for almost the amount of time you played WoW. Now 90% of that time is spent playing WoW too. It's a nasty habit, almost like a real drug addiction, as was an observation made by a friend of mine.

In regards to what you've said about relationships and the such: it happens, man, it really does. Just have to hang in there, really. None of us can really expect to find The One this early in our lives, maybe in the next 8-20 or so years, but not now. We're all still very young and still experiencing what life has to offer us.

As for the different faces: I did that a lot. It's hard to explain why it makes things maybe feel better or makes things more convenient or easier for you. It just does. It's hard to break free of it and it requires a lot of self-work. But you're a strong guy, you'll be able to do it.

Go hiking. It's relaxing to just be isolated out in the woods.

That's a good idea.


And thanks for the helpful words Kagom.

I'm going camping in a couple of weeks, looking forward to just relaxing(and getting drunk.)

Nothing to worry about out in the woods, except for bears and such.

Bears mean nothing.

If I see a bear I'm going to start flailing around and screaming like I'm crazy and scare that bitch off.

Only seen a coyote around here, and I think we spooked it. Whenever I want to escape I just take my Ipod for the long walk to the woods, turn off everything and just hike. It's fun.

I know the type of raiding guild you're in ...we have several of them on alleria. If I were you I'd leave that guild and join a more casual one. I'm in a casual raiding guild and we have a great time.

I play WOW a lot right now ...not because I'm severely addicted (I almost quit when blizzard people changed my fucking character's name until I had some guildies send me e-mails asking me to come back) but because I like the people in my guild and I don't have shit to do.

If WOW is really that much of a problem for you I might even quit it altogether. As far as your ex ...man, it sounds like it's about time to move on. There are plenty of decent chicks out there.