So, this is a very long post, I did add in a section further down with “more recent events” for a TL;DR out of habit, also pretty long but nowhere close to the start here. I just started feeling like typing my feelings out and ended up going through different sections of my life.
I titled this “My life is a mess”
Growing up, I never had it easy in school. I started getting bullied by the time I started first grade, because my family didn’t have much money and I was wearing pretty trashy clothes. I had one friend I hung out with on a daily basis and had a ton of fun with during my spare time after school and that was it. One true friend was enough for me. But getting bullied every single day by the older kids certainly was stressful and caused me to become isolated as my dad eventually got me a computer by the time I turned seven. I turned to games; it was an amazing new way for me to escape from reality.
By the time I finished third grade I moved to my dad’s place and had to start a new school. I remember thinking that this could be a fresh start and finally get away from the bullies!
Boy, was I wrong. It did not even take a week for someone to start commenting on my appearance, by this time I had gotten a bit overweight and you know how cruel kids can be, they definitely were to me. Daily harassment of how ugly I was and how I needed to go home so nobody had to look at me. But. I found a friend at this new school aswell. Antonio. My closest friend for 15 years now. We shared a passion for video games and quickly connected, we started hanging out on pretty much a daily basis and gamed together and had tons of fun!
Around mid-fourth grade my brother started playing a game I always watched him play, it was World of Warcraft. It looked so fun! In his case I remember seeing the 14-day trial and I kept pestering him and dad to let me take it and try the game for myself and eventually they allowed me to do so. I was hooked. I remember inviting my best friend home with me to show him the new game and we were both ecstatic about how cool this game was. He got his parents to purchase the game for him and we started playing every day and that quickly turned into an addiction.
This was an even greater escape from reality where I also got to have fun with my friend at the same time! As often as we could we started going in between each other’s houses to LAN during the weekends and play together at the same spot.
School was tough to get through, but having the end of day in my mind made me be able to get through it. I wanted to get home to play more.
Didn’t exactly have a good relationship with my father, he was verbally abusive and always told me how useless I was as I never did my chores but instead played games all day and didn’t do well in school. Atleast he didn’t take my game away I thought often to myself.
But the daily abuse from other kids and the strained relationship with my father also made me a compulsive eater to “drown” my sorrows. I rapidly started gaining even more weight and got bigger and bigger. By the time I was going to start sixth grade I was already over 100kg (220lbs) which certainly didn’t make things easier. It was time for yet another new school. I moved back to live with my mom and continued my adventures online with my friend.
Time comes around to start sixth grade and this was a huge new school. They had students from grade 1 all the way up to 9, we were over 600 kids at that school. But I didn’t want to attend school. I was fed up with being bullied every damn day. But it was a new place, perhaps people were nicer here? No. Definitely not. Things escalated further. This was the first time I attended a school that had older students (i.e. grade 8-9’ers) and I quickly became their target for abuse. Another daily fix of harassment, I was again told how ugly I was, how I needed to kill myself and to piss off because nobody wanted to lay eyes on me. I was pushed around and made fun of constantly.
Obviously, I quickly got fed up. I started cutting classes to stay home and play my game instead to not have to deal with the douches in school. Time passed by quickly. By this time I probably spent upwards of 10 hours per day playing WoW and barely slept anything. Eating and playing was pretty much all I did. I got into all kinds of content and started raiding hardcore to take things off my mind.
Things quickly escalated in that sense but I was all in since it was the only thing in life that gave me actual joy.
During my high-school years I also made two friends which has been with me since, Emil and Michael. They’ve been like brothers to me ever since and we’ve gotten along really well and both of them certainly has been an important part of my life since. We’ve shared the same interests and been playing all kinds of games together or just hanging out doing stupid shit pretty much.
I started getting suicidal thoughts as the bullying was very intense and I simply had enough of all the abuse. Pretty much had weekly meetings with the principal about the situation but they never really did anything. I was the problem to them because I wasn’t doing well in my classes. They put me in a “special school” (Not sure how to term it properly lol) a couple of days per week which was pretty neat and I did get to study by myself with more in-depth help from teachers but by this time I started acting out and becoming aggressive after all the years of bullying. I simply couldn’t take it anymore.
The days I attended my “normal” school once I was up to eight grade if people commented anything I would either comment something back or I would attack them. Unfortunately, that also included innocent people. By this time, I was completely devastated and if people so much as looked at me I would think they were judging me and I would start commenting things or push them up against the wall and threaten them. I had become the thing I hated the most. A bully. I got most people to stop though, but was it worth it? Having to go that far for things to change? No. I hated myself even more than I already did. I struggled intensively. WoW was everything to me that mattered. The only thing that kept me alive.
After ninth grade, I moved back to my father’s place yet again because the atmosphere was very strained at my mom’s place and she couldn’t handle it anymore. As you know by now, my father and I didn’t exactly have a good relationship. He’s always been very verbally abusive and always loved explaining exactly how useless I was for not getting through school properly and things like that. I was still actively playing games and pretty much kept myself isolated. I started studying at a secondary upper school (Gymnasiet in Swedish) but quickly dropped out after roughly six months.
My life was a complete mess. How was I still alive? What kept me going? Sure, the games were fun and all that but going through verbal abuse every damn day sure takes its toll.
Eventually I turned 18, I moved to my brother and sister’s place (Shared two-story house) that lived pretty far off to get away from my dad and his abuse. I found a job at a place called Sykes which was a call-center. The first two months were pretty chill but I wasn’t used to this type of environment. When I studied, I wasn’t doing full days, which means that it quickly became exhausting and I unfortunately started calling in sick during days I felt like I didn’t want to go there because it was frustrating and stressful taking all the calls and handling all kinds of issues for clients.
After six months of employment, I was let go and I had to move back to live with my mom again since my siblings couldn’t afford having me there for free. I started yet another school to study to get an education. I jumped into a vehicle program that would lead me into getting a car + truck license and that was pretty chill. However, the classes didn’t go that well. I skipped a lot of classes, only took a couple of them that I actually enjoyed and eventually did at least got my driver’s license and the first degree of the truck license and dropped out after as it was too intense as I wasn’t used to doing full days or that many subjects, I was too dumb to be able to pull it off I thought to myself very often. After dropping out, I was once again back to playing WoW fulltime and didn’t do anything else. Why would I want to do anything else? It’s all that was keeping me going. It still is to this day.
A couple of years later after pretty much doing nothing, my aunt’s husband phoned me up about a potential job as I had my truck license and that was working as a truckdriver in a mine.
I applied for the job and got it thanks to him and started working there, it certainly was a very special environment but I thought it was pretty chill and did my best. Unfortunately, eventually I was drawn back into the games again because it was much more relaxing and enjoyable than having to go to work and I stopped going there too. I got fired once again and went back into my bubble with gaming to escape reality once again.
Yes. I’m fully aware I’m a straight-up addict when it comes to computer games but in all honesty, if it weren’t for the games I wouldn’t be alive today. Truth be told, at this point it doesn’t matter to me anymore.
Fast-forward up to 2018, around April-March, roughly 5 months after having lost my job in the mine.
I applied back to Sykes as I wanted to move back to my brother’s place as we got along well and shared interests and did get accepted once more.
First two months were super chill, I had fun at work and everything was great. Didn’t miss a single day. But then, the client I was on there to work for completely exploded in popularity and our CS department got flooded in support errands because the phones had issues during release windows and it quickly became extremely overwhelming for me.
I started getting panic attacks at work from all the constant stress, we were short-staffed too so it was impossible for us to catch up to all the errands and it just kept growing and growing and I simply couldn’t handle it anymore. I burned out completely. It was like hitting a brick wall. Everything went to shit. I called up a health center and was sent on sick leave for 3 months to begin with to recover and slowly rehabilitate going back into work but it was still too much to handle. I ended up quitting the job and since then have been struggling with panic attacks and severe depression.
MORE RECENT EVENTS
Roughly six months ago, I was living at my sister’s place. I sold my gaming setup because I wanted to make a change and try to get out of the addiction I’ve created for myself and buy a car for the money instead and go back into applying for jobs. That didn’t last very long. The first two weeks was pretty chill, it felt like a vacation pretty much.
But after that all my old feelings and things started overflowing my mind and that vacation quickly turned into nightmare scenarios and overwhelmed me completely. I struggled hard, I started regretting selling the computer since it was all I had to escape from just these kind of things. I shortly after moved to my brother’s place yet again as I had a plan to go back to study for another education but eventually decided not to go because it just didn’t feel like the right thing for me to do. As I wasn’t going to start studying or felt like I could handle a job, I instead sold the car which was a terrible deal in the first place and purchased myself an older pretty crappy computer that I am now using to game on. It’s not a great experience but at least it works. I have no money either way to get something better so it doesn’t matter. I barely have any money to live on either. No savings as I haven’t worked in ages or for very long periods. All I own is this PC and a bed. Growing debts, both personal loans and older failed payment plans that went to shit.
Things are starting to catch up to me, all the trauma I went through as a kid remains undealt with, in no way had I tried to process everything I’ve went through during my upbringing.
My failures in school, at previous jobs. Failed relationships with both family and friends.
I quit my job at Sykes in January, 2019 and have since been unemployed. The mere thought of going back to work gives me panic attacks. I have no idea what to do at this point.
I do still play my video games to escape reality at this point, because what else is there to do? I can’t handle all the feelings. Suicidal thoughts have become a daily thing. I barely have any will to live at all. The games are literally what keeps me alive aswell as some of my family.
Where do I go from here? Am I ever going to function again? What purpose do I have in life? Atleast I’ve begun seeing a psychotherapist. It feels good to talk about everything that’s happened to me, but it still feels like there’s no way to recover from everything. I do want to be able to work again, but I simply don’t feel like I’m ever going to be able to again. I’d love to eventually find someone to love. To start a family with. But who would want someone who is as broken and messed up as I am? At this point, I’m around 140kg (308lbs) at my heaviest I was 160kg(352lbs) so at least I’ve done some sort of weight loss but it’s not nearly enough.
But I honestly have no idea what to do with my life anymore. I enjoy my video games as I’ve mentioned multiple times and I would want nothing more than to find a way to make a living doing that, but who would want to watch a completely broken person play games anyway? I doubt I’d find much success there either. But I don’t know what else to do. I have no money to live off of, I’m struggling hard with my panic attacks, severe depression and barely any will to live.
Anyways, that’s all for now. This went on for a lot longer than I expected but once I started typing I just couldn’t stop and honestly have no idea what to do anymore because I’m simply starting to lose that little edge over survival I have.
If you actually took your time and read all this text, thank you! I hope you’re doing better than me. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone honestly.
