Should I put videogames?? It's one of my favorite hobbies And it used to keep me from obsessing and from overthinking But I had an ocd flare 3 weeks ago and idk, my life just hasn't been the same, I feel panic, anxiety, things just doesn't feel the same, I haven't been able to play video games since I feel they could make me more anxious Is it ok to quit them??? Or should I try keep playing??
Videos games are OK if they are a form of escapism. Without moderation it can become avoidance which is a compulsion. Also, as fun as they are they can be stressful, and stress is a trigger for ocd. I quit playing competitive stuff as good as I was and it didn't even matter if I won, I got stressed and ocd sets in.
We all have hobbies and passions but OCD, Anxiety, Depression can take that way. I had other hobbies along with video games and when I had my flare up last year I isolated myself from my passions and just got stuck on the endless mind loop in my brain. I know it’s hard but you shouldn’t let OCD or anxiety get you away from your hobbies. I say either play a game that you know won’t trigger you or start out small. I started just playing 10 minutes a day and I was able to progress more and more. Hobbies are important in our life and we cut them down we give ocd a bigger door to ruminate
I hid from the world in them basically for 8 years, 12+ hours a day. It was comforting finding people online and like a little community I was comfortable with but I slowly started to notice the hole I was building in my life and future. I ignored it for a while, made it to #9 in North America in a game called Overwatch and tried convincing myself I could make a profession out of it but had a rough reality check. I decided to quit when I was 18 and was probably the best choice I made. Im still dealing with a lot of the things I missed out on and didn’t experience that other people my age did. It was very hard for myself to quit, it’s a weird addiction. If you can stop and find something else that helps you and involves being outside and around people physically, I’d recommend it but everyone’s different. Hope this helps at all
I made top 500 a few times on tank. Overwatch is a curse 😂
@Wolfram Some of the best memories I had as far as community, never been tighter with a group of people that was ironically 8 states away. I was a genji/Hanzo 😂
@BBlakeney99 Yeh. I had some good groups on it. I was a rein main. 😂
Hi there I have struggled with a very similar issue over the last few months. I love video games and have for 30 years (my whole life) but I have been dealing with contamination issues that have made me unable to pick up a controller since mid December. I feel if I was able to play games my OCD wouldn't be nearly as terrible as it is. I do understand your concern but it's important to try to discern whether video games help you, or hinder you. It's a tricky thing to figure out because the anxiety might be because you enjoy them but your OCD doesn't want you to do anything that would starve it. That's at least how it is for me
Maybe try to play video games after doing an exposure to like, ignore the feelings that come and refocus. For me I love Skyrim. It’s really fun to get into a different world after obsessing
Hi all, I will try to make it short (and will probably fail). I had my first real bout of pure ocd 15 years ago (I was 15). It started after smoking weed and a sort of depersonalization episode. Back then I did not understand what was happening so I spent almost a year keeping things to myself. The first obsessions I had centered around not being able to tell if I was real, or in a dream which created acute anxiety, I was also afraid of losing my mind as I did not understand what was happening. When I finally talked about it to my parents, they sent me to a therapist but he only wanted to give me meds and I was against it so I had to find another way. Through research and from experience I developed an habit of blocking thoughts that I started to recognize as obsessions by saying "I know this is all in my head". The disorder came and went throughout the years, I had many different themes, homosexual OCD, paedophile OCD, BDD. It was insufferable until I recognized it as a new theme (partly because it was listed as one on wikipedia) and then after a few weeks of telling myself this was just the disorder morphing I started to get better. I got a lot better, I went to study abroad, had the best year of my life, met my girlfriend who is wonderful. I think for three years I barely felt any deep anxiety, at least nothing compared to what I use to feel. But things got out of hand some months ago, I think due to life stressors (having to reconsider my career plans, feeling mike a failure, money and relationship problems). I think I went through a massive depressive episode, I lost interest in my creative passions, I was too anxious to feel anything anyway. I got a bit better but what I struggle with now is kind of hard to shake. See music as always been my main passion and it helped me a lot to get over ocd in the first place. But since this episode, I started to develop a fear of not being able to feel anything, especially toward music. I have tried to treat it as OCD and expose myself to the fear, but I can't help checking my feelings whenever I listen to or make music which I think might be a mental compulsion. I'll just tell myself "oh see you aren't feeling anything" or "you are feeling anxious listening to this song that you use to like so that must mean you don't love music anymore" and it makes me feel really anxious because I feel like it is a part of me dying and of course I can't enjoy the music because I'm constantly judging my feelings. It's kind of tricky because it is not really a typical theme, which maintains the doubt that it might just be real. Although I sort of see it as somewhere between ROCD (the loved one being music) and health OCD (the fear of having damaged my brain because of anxiety and thus being unable to feel joy anymore) So does anyone as ideas about what I should do if I want to use ERP for this thoughts ? Try to accept that maybe I lost my passion ? And do they sound like OCD at all ? Thank you ! (And sorry for the long post.)
Ok so just now I got a really bad intrusive thought it was “what if I’m actually gay” but I’m trying to handle it as good as I can. I’m always nervous that I don’t actually have ocd and I’m just denying that I’m gay. I almost did a compulsion, it was to look at pictures of girls (not naked just normal pictures) to see if I was attracted to them in a way that I would be considered a lesbian, but I stopped myself. I’m going to allow these thoughts to sit and make me upset. I’m not anxious but I think that’s just because I’m getting over the thoughts. I’m not going to look through this app and try to find reassurance I’m going to make sure I don’t make myself feel better. I’m home alone right now so my thoughts are wondering, I’m thinking a lot. I’m going to play games to kind of separate my thoughts, and make myself feel calm. Games have always been a big part of my life, I love games so that will bring me joy. I wanted to post this just so I could show myself that I can get through hard times, and hopefully this will help someone else!
Why does my ocd keep coming back and latching onto to different subjects now it’s a game character, who I thought was cool and it had a love story in the game that was very controversial , but game characters never do this to me
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