Journal: Entry for Jedi Wolf Sister
Confession of a WoW Addict
Author: Jedi Wolf Sister Send a noteboard
Posted: 05/10/2011 12:47:37 AM
Views: 2321
I am a recovering WoW Addict.
I'm somewhere between joking and serious on that one.
There was a point in my life where I depended on WoW utterly in order to escape exactly how much my life sucked. If I wasn't doing housework or filling out job applications that would never be answered, I was on the game ignoring the reality that my life was so far down the toilet I couldn't even see the plunger.
I was unemployed. I had no car. Even if I had a car, I didn't have a driver's license. I lived in one of those states where it costs over a hundred dollars for all the excessive tests that need to be taken prior to issuing the license, and being unemployed, I rather lacked the funds for getting it.
"Oh, but you had the money for internet and an MMO?"
Try putting in applications for anything other than a ma&pa; store or WalMart without the internet. Other than a few chain stores that have application terminals on-site, *everybody* wants their applications filled out online. There's next to no such thing as paper applications last I checked. As for the money for the MMO, it was a lot cheaper than seeing a shrink and getting anti-depressants. Without insurance.
So, yes. I absolutely was as addicted to WoW as anybody who's ever been addicted to an illegal substance. It was an easy escape from what I referred to as "the bottomless abyss of suckitude." And you know what? If I hadn't been escaping into fictional hack-and-slash with friends to chat with along the way, I very likely would have slit my wrists.
I almost typed "I very likely would have blown my head off." But quite frankly, guns and bullets cost money, and money was something I didn't have enough of to be wasting on such frivolous things as suicide. Sure, sure, *I* wouldn't have needed the money anymore, but there were family members who still would have needed grocery money.
Assuming my equally depressed family member wouldn't have just followed my example.
No, we didn't talk to each other much then. We were too busy wallowing in self pity to handle being sympathetic to each other's plights, even though our problems were essentially one and the same. It was an endless cycle of suck and I would still be stuck there if not for a dear friend's intervention.
And I don't mean she cut me off from WoW. She just got me out of there and restored hope.
Hope is an ugly thing to lose.
I generally try not to think about where I was when this was going on. Mentally anyway (though I suspect this is entirely why I hate the state with a passion). But it got drug to the surface tonight.
A friend from a while back suggested a movie called Wild Hunt, and before looking too deeply into it I suggested to the roomie that we check it out.
Big. Mistake.
Turns out that it's about some really deranged LARP group doing horrible nasty things to some chick who decided their LARP sucked and she wanted to go home.
This opened up what essentially boiled down to the good old Bible Thumper VS D&D; can of worms. Which, of course, came around to attacking my "abbuse" of WoW while I was in The Bottomless Abyss of Suckitude.
Do I still play? Yes. But not nearly so much as I did then, and I absolutely don't use it to escape from reality anymore. The simple fact is, I still have friends who play and I like to chat with them.... They're just a pain in the ass to get in touch with outside the game, because like the paranoid internet users we are, we don't exchange private personal information.
I guess... Basically... I'm just pissed off, because somehow, just because I used to use a game as an escape from depression, now none of my arguments are taken as reasonable or viable.
And because I'm pissed, I can't sleep. I've got to work in the morning dang it.
I'm somewhere between joking and serious on that one.
There was a point in my life where I depended on WoW utterly in order to escape exactly how much my life sucked. If I wasn't doing housework or filling out job applications that would never be answered, I was on the game ignoring the reality that my life was so far down the toilet I couldn't even see the plunger.
I was unemployed. I had no car. Even if I had a car, I didn't have a driver's license. I lived in one of those states where it costs over a hundred dollars for all the excessive tests that need to be taken prior to issuing the license, and being unemployed, I rather lacked the funds for getting it.
"Oh, but you had the money for internet and an MMO?"
Try putting in applications for anything other than a ma&pa; store or WalMart without the internet. Other than a few chain stores that have application terminals on-site, *everybody* wants their applications filled out online. There's next to no such thing as paper applications last I checked. As for the money for the MMO, it was a lot cheaper than seeing a shrink and getting anti-depressants. Without insurance.
So, yes. I absolutely was as addicted to WoW as anybody who's ever been addicted to an illegal substance. It was an easy escape from what I referred to as "the bottomless abyss of suckitude." And you know what? If I hadn't been escaping into fictional hack-and-slash with friends to chat with along the way, I very likely would have slit my wrists.
I almost typed "I very likely would have blown my head off." But quite frankly, guns and bullets cost money, and money was something I didn't have enough of to be wasting on such frivolous things as suicide. Sure, sure, *I* wouldn't have needed the money anymore, but there were family members who still would have needed grocery money.
Assuming my equally depressed family member wouldn't have just followed my example.
No, we didn't talk to each other much then. We were too busy wallowing in self pity to handle being sympathetic to each other's plights, even though our problems were essentially one and the same. It was an endless cycle of suck and I would still be stuck there if not for a dear friend's intervention.
And I don't mean she cut me off from WoW. She just got me out of there and restored hope.
Hope is an ugly thing to lose.
I generally try not to think about where I was when this was going on. Mentally anyway (though I suspect this is entirely why I hate the state with a passion). But it got drug to the surface tonight.
A friend from a while back suggested a movie called Wild Hunt, and before looking too deeply into it I suggested to the roomie that we check it out.
Big. Mistake.
Turns out that it's about some really deranged LARP group doing horrible nasty things to some chick who decided their LARP sucked and she wanted to go home.
This opened up what essentially boiled down to the good old Bible Thumper VS D&D; can of worms. Which, of course, came around to attacking my "abbuse" of WoW while I was in The Bottomless Abyss of Suckitude.
Do I still play? Yes. But not nearly so much as I did then, and I absolutely don't use it to escape from reality anymore. The simple fact is, I still have friends who play and I like to chat with them.... They're just a pain in the ass to get in touch with outside the game, because like the paranoid internet users we are, we don't exchange private personal information.
I guess... Basically... I'm just pissed off, because somehow, just because I used to use a game as an escape from depression, now none of my arguments are taken as reasonable or viable.
And because I'm pissed, I can't sleep. I've got to work in the morning dang it.
I lurk a lot... 
I had this, too.
I lost nearly a year of my life to civ3. Played for 14 hours a day, slept the rest.
I guess... Basically... I'm just pissed off, because somehow, just because I used to use a game as an escape from depression, now none of my arguments are taken as reasonable or viable.
And because I'm pissed, I can't sleep. I've got to work in the morning dang it.
I'm confused, what are you pissed off about? Who is attacking you, and what right have they to question you?
How did she do it? I'm trying to remember how I did it. One, my lovely state did allow me to get insurance for the poor and thus antidepressants. Two, I think one day, my dad simply hid the disk for the game, and I didn't ask or look for it. But most of all, my external circumstances changes - I finally got the job I was waiting for - and that is kinda scary to me: what if I hadn't?
I still abuse the Internet. I cover it well, because I'm pretty well functioning. Not depressed anymore, not a bit. But I do the mindless Internet browsing for 5-6 hours a day, every day. That's a lot of life there. I honestly don't know how to stop though.
I guess... Basically... I'm just pissed off, because somehow, just because I used to use a game as an escape from depression, now none of my arguments are taken as reasonable or viable.
And because I'm pissed, I can't sleep. I've got to work in the morning dang it.
I'm confused, what are you pissed off about? Who is attacking you, and what right have they to question you?
It was an endless cycle of suck and I would still be stuck there if not for a dear friend's intervention.
And I don't mean she cut me off from WoW. She just got me out of there and restored hope.
And I don't mean she cut me off from WoW. She just got me out of there and restored hope.
How did she do it? I'm trying to remember how I did it. One, my lovely state did allow me to get insurance for the poor and thus antidepressants. Two, I think one day, my dad simply hid the disk for the game, and I didn't ask or look for it. But most of all, my external circumstances changes - I finally got the job I was waiting for - and that is kinda scary to me: what if I hadn't?
I still abuse the Internet. I cover it well, because I'm pretty well functioning. Not depressed anymore, not a bit. But I do the mindless Internet browsing for 5-6 hours a day, every day. That's a lot of life there. I honestly don't know how to stop though.
I first started playin WoW when I was going through a rough patch.
It distracted me from certain problems that I couldn't do anything to change, so I didn't see anything wrong with it. People need to release tension and video games are much better than some of the alternative methods.
Even once those problems were gone I kept playing fairly often though. But still, it was my free time and it wasn't interfering with other parts of my life at the time.
It's a truly addictive game. In the past couple years I started to grow bored with it, but every time I quit, within a few months I was feeling a longing to start back up again. A few times I've resubscribed, played for a couple weeks, and then stopped again because I remembered how bored I was. I leveled to 85 when I got Cataclysm and then quit again. There are still a lot of things I actually would like to do in the game, and still to this day I feel that longing to play it, but I know now that it's just not going to be as fun as I thought it would be. I'll probably be back for the next expansion anyway.
Thankfully I have a lot of other stuff to do these days, and I've been trying to play single player games to take the edge off as I slowly pry WoW's hooks out of my brain. Skyrim and Diablo 3 are going to help a lot with that.
That longing I feel takes place even without a network of chatty friends waiting for me in the game. I've had a few friends over the years who played it, but none of them are really into the game anymore either. If they were, it would probably be even harder for me to resist it.
Anyway, that's a long way of saying that there's only something wrong with playing it, even with playing it fairly often, if it's getting in the way of other parts of your life, things that need to be done or should be done. If not, well, it's your life, do what makes you happy. Or, if you're playing every day even if it doesn't make you happy, then you should probably be worried. Otherwise, screw the naysayers.
Even once those problems were gone I kept playing fairly often though. But still, it was my free time and it wasn't interfering with other parts of my life at the time.
It's a truly addictive game. In the past couple years I started to grow bored with it, but every time I quit, within a few months I was feeling a longing to start back up again. A few times I've resubscribed, played for a couple weeks, and then stopped again because I remembered how bored I was. I leveled to 85 when I got Cataclysm and then quit again. There are still a lot of things I actually would like to do in the game, and still to this day I feel that longing to play it, but I know now that it's just not going to be as fun as I thought it would be. I'll probably be back for the next expansion anyway.
Thankfully I have a lot of other stuff to do these days, and I've been trying to play single player games to take the edge off as I slowly pry WoW's hooks out of my brain. Skyrim and Diablo 3 are going to help a lot with that.
That longing I feel takes place even without a network of chatty friends waiting for me in the game. I've had a few friends over the years who played it, but none of them are really into the game anymore either. If they were, it would probably be even harder for me to resist it.
Anyway, that's a long way of saying that there's only something wrong with playing it, even with playing it fairly often, if it's getting in the way of other parts of your life, things that need to be done or should be done. If not, well, it's your life, do what makes you happy. Or, if you're playing every day even if it doesn't make you happy, then you should probably be worried. Otherwise, screw the naysayers.
Re: Confession of a WoW Addict
[quote]I'm confused, what are you pissed off about? Who is attacking you, and what right have they to question you? [/quote]
Basically because any valid argument I have is ignored with a "Look at you. You're a game addict." type response. It some how makes anything I do or say related to gaming completely invalid in her mind.
[quote]How did she do it?[/quote]
She got me out of the state I was living in. Helped me get back on my feet. Now I'm working and getting shit on track. Life is good 90% of the time. Not depressed anymore, so I don't spend all my time ignoring a depressing life in animated hack & slash.
[quote]It distracted me from certain problems that I couldn't do anything to change,[/quote]
This. 100% this.
Wow... It actually hurt reading that.
[quote]That longing I feel takes place even without a network of chatty friends waiting for me in the game.[/quote]
Yeah, I don't think I'd bother keeping my subscription at all if not for my guild. Or maybe, just maaaayyyyybe, I might be tempted to pick up the EU version of the game and play that while I'm out here. Then again... The price of all the x-pacs would probably turn me off too much to bother.
Basically because any valid argument I have is ignored with a "Look at you. You're a game addict." type response. It some how makes anything I do or say related to gaming completely invalid in her mind.
[quote]How did she do it?[/quote]
She got me out of the state I was living in. Helped me get back on my feet. Now I'm working and getting shit on track. Life is good 90% of the time. Not depressed anymore, so I don't spend all my time ignoring a depressing life in animated hack & slash.
[quote]It distracted me from certain problems that I couldn't do anything to change,[/quote]
This. 100% this.
Wow... It actually hurt reading that.
[quote]That longing I feel takes place even without a network of chatty friends waiting for me in the game.[/quote]
Yeah, I don't think I'd bother keeping my subscription at all if not for my guild. Or maybe, just maaaayyyyybe, I might be tempted to pick up the EU version of the game and play that while I'm out here. Then again... The price of all the x-pacs would probably turn me off too much to bother.