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Cake day: December 23rd, 2023

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  • Core problem you come across in multiplayer team games is that there is often required support roles that are less generally desirable to play than the usual gameplay experience. E.g. people want to shoot guns rather than heal teammates.

    So when you lose a team game, it’s often pretty easy to look at what your team was doing, and figure it what vital support roles weren’t being filled.

    This can lead to what we see in the meme here, where you reflexively blame your teammates not fulfilling support obligations collectively, healing in this case. This blame assignment also purposely glosses over the fact that you were perfectly capable of identifying the problem, yet didn’t switch to a support role yourself. This helps shift the blame, and absolves you of the responsibility of the loss, managing your own emotional state.

    Because this helps regulate your own emotional state, it becomes reinforced behaviour, and you become reliant on it over time. You point out issues that aren’t there, become hyper critical of others, anything to make sure you aren’t at fault. It even goes so far as becoming reflexive at the very concept of a lost round, or any negative outcome. It’s not uncommon for people to make mistakes while they’re alone, and then retroactively blame their teammates for not being there with a “WHERE WAS TEAM!?!?”

    In general, it’s a huge problem in games like Dota or LoL. Toxicity borne from negative emotions is now part of the core gameplay experience in public matches, which leads to others doing the same. I myself can’t even boot Dota anymore because of the associated negativity, despite not actively not engaging with it myself.



  • I’ve been pretty much exactly where you are now, but we’re not the same person. I’m drawing a lot from my own experience here, but I’m going to try to keep it as detached from myself as I can.

    First thing, I want to really acknowledge here that you were right. You cannot become an independent person while you are being managed by other people. Unless they intended to do this for you your whole life, you were going to have this issue at some point. Usually it’s done earlier on, when the consequences for failure are less, but this is the situation now, and you will have to deal with it as it is. I think you were wise to set those boundaries with your parents, and I think what’s happening now are just the first growing pains, an adjustment period. It will get better after this, I promise. Do not let them take the reins back if you can help it, this is an important developmental milestone in your life.

    There’s a possibility that there’s some mental health issues here, exactly what I’m not qualified to really diagnose. It sounds exactly like how I fell apart at University because I was independent for the first time, with undiagnosed ADHD. While that might be a possibility for you, I think that’s best something you should think on. It may help getting a diagnosis with whatever might be going on, but that’s something you can pursue if you feel the need.

    Even if you don’t have that kind of mental health issue though, you might have a mental block of some kind due to your past or even current experiences. It might be worth talking to a councillor, or even to a trusted friend about what’s going on, it might help unbottle your feelings and help you realise what’s going on inside your head.

    Beyond the clinical stuff though, make sure you are unwinding a little. If you’re constantly pushing yourself you might have these kinds of issues as well. You have needs, and you’ll need to figure out how to keep yourself and your body happy and healthy. It should be easier now you have more control, but there’ll be an adjustment period, like everything else.

    The real meat of the issue sounds like the loss of structure and maybe purpose, because you’ve never been in a position to organise yourself before. That’s only natural. The first thing I would advise is maybe take a day to reassess what you truely want. If your parents have been in control all this time, you might not have had the opportunity to really decide for yourself what you want to do, and sometimes your brain will retaliate by self sabotaging, substance abuse, anything to take back control or help with the discomfort. Instead, really think about how sure you are you want to continue on this path. If not education, maybe try working for a bit, if you can. Focus on where the path will take you, focus on moving out eventually if you haven’t already, think about the life you want beyond this. How you achieve these things is entirely in your own hands. Having this sense of purpose will help everything else fall in place, so it’s important to maintain it.

    If you’re 100% sure this is what you want, you’ll need to start building good habits for yourself. It sounds like sleep is a big issue, so focus on that. Figure out exactly what you need to be up for, set that alarm, and stick to it 100% of the time. It’ll suck, but then it will get better. If that’s not working, as it sounds like it might be, it could be down to some other issue. I have delayed phase sleep, I couldn’t maintain a normal sleep cycle despite decades of trying. If that’s the case, or something else, you might be able to work around it.

    This goes for everything, but don’t try to just force yourself to act the same way everyone else is, because it’s not possible if you aren’t the same as everyone else. Instead, work with what you have, your own needs and limitations, and your body and brain will thank you for it.

    Beyond the specifics you’ve described, you’ll likely come up against issues as you adjust to your new way of living. You’ll stumble, there will be minor failures, that’s okay. It sucks, but those failures are part of the learning. I know people that never put those boundaries with their parents, it’s not a good look in the long term.

    I want to stress this, if you fail a bit, it’s not a sign you should stop. I stopped my degree because of issues like these, and it has not been helpful, though I have done well despite it, because working helped me get my brain together. I have a friend that took a decade to get a teaching degree, but now he’s teaching at one of the better schools in the state. Persistence does pay off, and it does get better.

    I know it probably really sucks right now. You’re doing the right thing. Keep going.










  • I did something similar to what this article describes a bit back. For me it was turning off my phone, the effect was staggering. Anxiety etc dropped immediately.

    For me in particular, it was being constantly available to anyone in my life, but also the doom scrolling, and knowing there’s a vast ocean of infinite content at my fingertips. Sure, I could curate my experience, and block people, but overall the phone is still functioning largely the same as it ever does. I can always turn those features back on. By changing how the device works externally, you’re disconnecting those people from the decade and a half of reinforcement and whatever they have associated with their phones.

    To get similar results I was able to just turn off my phone, but that might vary for some. Anyway, it seems reasonable for the experiment at least.