Even though I’ve (mostly) gotten rid of my bad habits related to the Freeze Loop, like pacing, talking to myself out loud, maladaptive daydreaming, doom scrolling, and just generally being mindless (e.g. excessive gaming, lying in bed all day, etc.), I actually somewhat miss doing those things, even though I know how detrimental they were for me, and how much time I wasted doing them. I’m not saying I want to go back, but there was a certain enjoyment to the escapist stuff I used to do, a certain privilege in being able to feel powerless against letting myself waste hours of my day, that I don’t seem to feel anymore. Whenever I try to do old things I used to like from what I might effectively be able to start calling the “Foggy Times”…. I can’t stay focused on it for as long as I used to. Even daydreaming feels kinda pointless. It feels weird. This was even true before I got out of my fog: those habits have long since been a series of “to-dos” instead of something I actually enjoyed. Exploring NBA Live 2005’s side menus and stuff at the end of Dynasty Mode sessions was legitimately the first time I’ve enjoyed gaming in years, heck, decades maybe, and just gamed for the heck of it. It also feels weird because when I get out of a Freeze/dissociation loop (pretty rare these days), it feels legitimately like I’m waking up from being asleep, and I wonder if that feels normal. It’s like all I do now is actually do stuff… and it terrifies the heck out of me. It terrifies me to be this productive with my life (relatively speaking) for some reason I can’t put my finger on. Maybe my parents always raising the expectations on me as a kid until I wasn’t able to play with my friends anymore… nah, it can’t be that. I obviously don’t feel rushed/worried all the time anymore, but I’m not getting as much joy out of this new life as I thought I would. It just feels like it kinda happens, and by the time I’ve truly settled down, I’m yawning. I’ve thought about exploring new hobbies, but everything these days apparently sucks and is way too expensive. Plus, it feels practically impossible to make new friends IRL, and because of how much time I spent dissociating and in the Freeze Loop growing up, I have very few friends to begin with. Like, I have hobbies now, but I want social connection and I want to experience the joys others claim to. But I want to be able to fully appreciate them and not just have them be checkboxes on my ever-growing to-do list. If I do get the things I want out of life, I don’t want to hedonically adapt to them… I want to be able to be overjoyed and deeply grateful that I have them every single day. I want to be able to feel as positively as I think I’d feel if I got those things I wanted. What to do?

Posted by marcopolo_96 at 2024-04-27 02:41:46 UTC