My addiction to World of Warcraft and obsession over getting a certain mount may have lead to the death of an elderly man.
Way back in the ancient times, I was super addicted to WoW and really wanted this super rare mount. I would stay up super late trying to farm for it with no luck and eventually started setting an alarm for when it was supposed to spawn and waking up every hour or something all night to log in and try and get it. After a few days of this, I was fried and couldn’t function at all.
At the time I worked at a soft serve ice cream place and had to be there early to open the store which was inside a mall food court. My main opening job was to clean out the soft serve machines and get them ready for the day. Well, these machines are under a fair bit of pressure and your supposed to drain off all the left over soft serve and depressurize the machine before you open it up to clean it.
I didn’t depressurize it.
In my sleep deprived, deep-fried state, I walked through the mall food court filled with the early morning elderly mall walkers making their rounds. Got to work and immediately started unscrewing the face plate of the soft serve machine to start cleaning it. It sounded like a bomb went off. I was covered head to toe, literally every square inch of the front of my body was covered in ice cream mix and when I scraped the ice cream out of my eyes and looked around to survey the damage, I was horrified. There was chocolate ice cream splattered from one corner of the food court to the other, floor to ceiling. Everyone in the food court had at least a little ice cream on them, most more than a little. But then, A man who had to be in his upper 80s collapsed, grasping at his chest. The sound of the explosion and the shock of freezing ice cream sprayed all over him gave him a heart attack.
The paramedics were loading him up on a stretcher when my boss told me to go home and change. To my surprise, I wasn’t fired but when I came back later that morning, no one could give me an update on the man. I never found out if he made it or not, but my gut tells me he probably didn’t. He was a regular mall walker and I would see him quite often before that day, but never did after that.
I never did end up getting that mount. I can’t even remember what it was anymore which makes the whole story even worse imo. I quit WoW shortly after that incident and never really played another MMO after. I think about that man anytime I get the urge to stay up late and grind another game or finish another episode or whatever it is.
That was exactly what it was. I had to look it up but as soon as i opened that wiki page, this surge of anxiety and ptsd washed over me. That was it for sure.
I’m not saying that you didn’t mess up, but he was in his 80s. Try not to beat yourself up too much. An outlook I’ve had after a few close deaths is to live a better healthier life for those not here. Mall walker man can be you driving force to help better the world one mall walker at a time.
I was into WOW for a long time and I know the addiction tendencies that creep up playing that game. These are companies (gaming and social media) that spend countless time, money, and energy to try to get as many people addicted to their services as possible. The average teenager trying to kill time between classes or jobs don’t really stand a chance.
I’ve always felt that my willpower is the only thing I have any strength in. The trouble is, that in order to exercise my will, I must concentrate on doing so. With ADHD focusing on anything can be hard as fuck if there’s too many distractions. So I eliminate the distractions (or as many as I possibly can).
I was golfing alone in 2017. I decided to post a picture on instagram of me golfing which I wouldn’t have posted if I had gone alone. I’m not really into social media so I’m not even sure why I did it. At the end of the round I look and see a like from a girl I hadn’t seen in years. I didn’t even know she followed me. I message her, then from there the snowball rolls into us getting married.
If I didn’t go golfing, if I wasn’t sent out on the course alone, I’d I didn’t post the picture, if she didn’t like it, none of it ever would have happened.
I would say first and foremost be kind to yourself, @SubArcticTundra. Strengthening your willpower begins with good self-care techniques. Set regular, realistic, and achievable goals and when you achieve them, do something positive for yourself. Too often we are our own worst enemies and by beating yourself up you actually make it harder to achieve what you really want. This is something I struggle with even though I do not have ADHD. Will-power comes not from negative reinforcement but from the positive kind. 😀
You should aim to barely be reacting. Focus on your breathing to distract your whole nervous system from the feeling of discomfort the cold water brings.
You’re training your body to not react to adverse events. To roadblocks, to shitty situations, to things that might otherwise derail you.
My subscription feed isn’t big enough yet for me to just scroll through that so I’ve been dipping in and out of… I was about to say /r/all but whatever the Lemmy word for that is, and there seems to be a new dumb community flooding my feed every day - yesterday it was 196, today it was weirdgirlmemes. I just block them and carry on
I completely agree, but I would ascribe a lot of it to teething of an early platform. Narwhals and bacon once dominated that other site in the early days lol
I like it too. Back in Reddit I never saw/heard about that community. I have grown fond of their humor here on Kbin. It gets at least a couple of laughs a day, and I've even laughed out loud on some occasions.
Every post on a chan-style imageboard has a number. If the last two digits are the same, it’s “dubs.”
Now imagine a million threads full of nothing but people trying to get dubs on their comment. Yeah, it’s really that stupid.
The creator of 4chan (moot) turned them off at some point (as in, it would skip any number with dubs, but not trips or above), but right before he sold 4chan he turned them back on.
“Just do it” is such easy advice to give but I feel your pain OP. There are things I want to accomplish that I CANNOT get myself up to do. I can’t execute plans or schedules for things that don’t immediately threaten my livelihood. It’s a real PITA. Executive dysfunction is a term I’ve read about recently that describes this.
I’m convinced the way we think about things is the driving force. For example, I’ve always struggled to work out regularly. What’s really been helping me the last month is the mantra “I’ll never regret working out but I absolutely will regret not working out”. So try to critically evaluate your thought processes behind the things you want to accomplish and see if there is another way of thinking about it that makes doing it easier.
I really like your mantra – yeah it really helps me when thoughts like this reframe the way I look at things. I often struggle with being paralized by guilt, for example the guilt of having put an email off for too long, or tge fear that starting ti revise for my exams now would make me feel guilty that I didn’t start preparing earlier. I wish I had a similar mantra for that
Yes! The guilt eats you alive and completely paralyzes you! I never could figure out what made me tick to help improve my study habits. But I just graduated so I managed and now I’m done forever! You will always wish you started sooner, no matter how early you start.
For little things like emails, consider how they take barely 5 mins to do. We have 1,440 minutes in a day and we can’t even take 5 to send the freaking email?! I use that mindset for chores too. I gripe and moan about the kitty litter box but it takes 60 seconds to just scoop the damn thing.
Ahh putting it into perspective does sound like it would help me. Unfortunately for me writing an email usually takes closer to 20 minutes because I’m really slow at phrasing what I have to say and I sit around stuck on trying to phrase my email in a way that doesn’t sound too commanding/impolite/etc . Have you ever had this? It might be an ADHD thing idk.
I’ve experienced that as well with emails. I’ve gotten faster over the years because of the amount I’ve had to send but have definitely spent 30+ minutes writing some of them. I will write it and then read it out loud to myself to make sure it makes sense and, like you said, doesn’t sound rude or aggressive. Realistically, no matter how careful you are people still might misinterpret it. I’ve never been diagnosed or sought to be diagnosed with ADHD so it’s hard to say. I’m too stubborn to seek a diagnosis and try meds because it’s just one more thing for me to forget to do 😅
Don’t overthink it. That helps me. Obviously match your phrasing to the situation like if it needs to be formal, be formal, but if not then just write it out and send it.
Smoke one, I promise it will be disgusting. Later that day, will yourself outside to smoke another. Repeat 2 or 3 times a day until the pack is gone. Live this way and be addicted to nicotine for a year. After a year, do it in reverse and quit.
Afterwards, you’ll be able to will anything into reality.
When I was in grade 2 I had an old substitute teacher tell us a story about how he trained his willpower by setting an alarm every night at 3 am and when it went off he’d do 10 jumping jacks.
I tried it that night, got out of bed and did 2 jumping jacks before realizing this was the dumbest thing ever. If I had the willpower to get out of bed in the middle of the night to exercise I already had the willpower in the first place.
But weirdly enough ever since that night I’ve been able to get out of bed on the first alarm
Not exactly what you’re asking but possibly helpful-
I’ve found that ‘pairing’ the item of resistance to another established habit has been helpful. A decent example is putting my gym stuff on the bathroom counter. I have the habit of brushing my teeth in the morning and now I have my exercise clothes where I’m guaranteed to see them. It’s harder to make excuses and at this point you just gotta commit.
This might be more what you’re asking about-
I got the pairing idea from a great series on procrastination, Solving the Procrastination Puzzle by Tim Pychyl. The speaker takes the approach that resistance is not a matter of will power but a matter of emotional regulation. I recommend checking it out!
I listened to it on Waking Up but you might be able to find it elsewhere. Here’s a link to where I listened, free 30 days no credit card needed. (There is no incentive for me, just sharing what helped me) dynamic.wakingup.com/pack/PK0AA14?source=content …
The Science of Self Control is an excellent book about willpower and, well, self control. It goes into the science of it and how to use that to your advantage.
One thing I do is to reduce friction. You are more likely to do something if you make whatever it is easier to do. Conversely, if you want to stop doing something, increase friction (make it harder to do). Two examples:
You want to go to the gym in the mornings? Go to bed a bit earlier, get everything ready the night before, and maybe even sleep in your gym clothes.
Your want to stop eating cookies? Put them somewhere you’re less likely to walk past them or see them.
In your case, maybe try removing things that are distractions, e.g. put your phone on the other side of the room.
Sleeping in my gym clothes sounds like a radicaly effective move. Especially as it physocally connects evening me to tomorrow me, which I otherwise struggle to mentaly do…
When I was super down in different times of my life, I would sleep in my work clothes that way I would wake up and be on time for work. So yeah… this can be pretty effective.
We do not have to keep a register open just because there is a customer in the store. We’ve been making closing announcements for almost an hour and the store closed 20 minutes ago. You had more then enough time to buy whatever you wanted. Come back tomorrow.
People not knowing the difference between a cash register and a voting booth kinda makes most election results of the past few decades make a lot more sense though 🤔
Had a similar thing when our internet and phones went out in a retail store. We processed cash transactions for as long as we could before closing a couple hours early. Asshole stuck his foot in the door when the manager was trying to explain why he couldn’t come in, demanding that we let him shop. He was clearly drunk, to boot. Ugh.
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