I'm hype and positive and hopeful and terrified and lonely and detached

I wonder if Tech Addiction is a thing, or if its just me dodging real issues with myself. Streaming or Not. Friends over or not. I’m always plugged in all of the time.Tabletop game? Fiddling with my phone looking at stupid internet things. No plans for the night, no stream? Sit here on my PC for hours. Work? along with work, I always have my headphones in and a stream up. Outside of the line in the sand I drew with my bedroom last week, to remove the TV from my room, I am plugged in from the moment I wake up, until the moment I go to bed.

And if I unplug, I’m anxious as hell.

I never leave my house, I sit here all the time, plugged in. Afraid to live again. And Im not depressed, Im not even sad. By and large I’m upbeat, positive and happy. I’m everyone favorite hype man.

I’m afraid of the outside, afraid to go do random things, and I used to LOVE just random adventures.

Most of all, I’m afraid of the silence.I’m afraid of the nothing. Nothing puts me on edge. Silence drives me mad.
I have spent so much of my adult life with perpetual external stimuli, that without it I get panicky. I have dodged hanging out with friends, because it means I have to leave my house.

I say I want to be around people, but its only if being around people means they come here, not I go there, to the point I have friends genuinely upset to the point of mentioning it.

In my castle, I am king, out there, well out there is terrifying.
I dont leave unless I have to. If I could telecommute to my job, and get my groceries delivered, I’m pretty sure I would literally never leave the house.

I didnt really start fully processing this until the last two months when my roommate moved in. He sits in his room and never leaves. Up there on the third floor. Hes like a ghost in my house. I hear him walking around sometimes, and randomly he will pass by, but he’s always in his space, and I’m always in the rest of the house.

To the point my wife (Who lives in a different house, long story, works for us mostly) called us out on it on Saturday. She bought pizza, asked me to see if he wanted some. I said I’d text him. She went “You’re both ridiculous. You live in the house together, but you don’t actually hang out to the point that you’d rather text him than walk up and knock on his door, because it means having an actual conversation.”

Even right now, as I write this, he came down, without saying a word, made Ramen, and returned to his tower. I know he’s like me, that he has the same issues peopling as I do though, and I find comfort in that, as we get each other, but I’m worried we’re actually enabling each others isolation

@ZeroHourHero if you think you guys are enabling each other. Then test it out. The next time he comes for food or whatever and you happen to be there try to start a conversation. (Try for 30 secs then let it add up until you guys converse for one to two minutes.)

If he tries to end the conversation then yes you guys are enabling each other. (Yet maybe he wants to hang out but doesn’t want to invade your space.) So have a conversation. If you question if it was a good one then try it again. IF your first conversation is only 30 seconds and your second conversation lasts longer than no you guys aren’t enabling each others introvertism.

IF you like having conversations then continue or don’t. It is your choice. (If he doesn’t want to talk then it isn’t your fault. It is what it is.)

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I’ve gotten him to BS before, and he comes down every two weeks for our Tabletop night. It was more to the point that we both live in a weird self imposed isolation in the same house. The entire bit with him was less “This is a problem” and more of a hitch hiked though flowing through the stream of consciousness.

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Hey Jay,

I replied in Discord but wanted to tell you: this is awesome. You are awesome. These realizations are powerful, and I’ve seen a trend in your life just from the past couple weeks of you finding a goal and working towards it and achieving it. You are someone who makes progress in your life, and if this is something that you set as a goal, I know you’re going to achieve it…to become more socially active, to become less technologically dependent, to become more self confident…I am confident that you are going to make progress if you set this in your mind to do it. I’m proud of who you are bro.

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