I am 9 months free of a very bad for me habit. For several years I compulsively played online fantasy roleplay games. I'd never personally been addicted to anything before, but online gaming grabbed me hard.

I played in a gaming chat room, for awhile was an operator also, and a storyteller. I got so caught up in the online drama that can happen in a chat room. Lots of unhealthy dynamics in this case. And the gaming was also unhealthy for me, we all played vampires and other horror type scenarios, definitely triggered me often.

Yet I was hooked, playing allowed me to space out, to revisit what was familiar to me, which was trauma, all of it was the perfectly -wrong- drug for me.

Once I began to figure out what was going on, I read up on habit change, on compulsions, on what other folks also experience online. I finally had to go cold turkey. Wasn't easy, and there are still times when I want to just shut down my mind and play.

I'm working on being compassionate with myself about all this, cause it still is a bit embarassing and puzzling. Fortunately was able to work with a good therapist specifically about what I was doing with online gaming and all the other stuff that is me. I was traumatizing myself over and over again and had to stop.

So, it's 9 months free. I'm developing other pursuits. Still learning about what all I went through, what I was doing online.

Yeah, it is embarassing..."You were addicted to WHAT?".......but it's human, and I'm not the only one going through this. I'm proud of myself for ceasing the self-triggering, for stopping the activity that traumatized me.

Sarah