I am a 16 year old boy and I started playing in middle school with my friends because I was bored and didn’t know what to do.
I am competitive and the games allowed me to measure myself against difficult and challenging challenges, I liked them. When I reached my goals I was happy and I immediately wanted to play again.
Little by little, without realizing it, I became addicted to games.
In high school I had difficulty at school and I didn’t get along very well with my classmates. So I gradually withdrew into the virtual world of the game: I spent my afternoons, sometimes even nights. I hardly ever left the house, I gave up judo and football, the game had become an obsession, I only thought about that.
My parents noticed, they were worried and started to control me, so I started playing in secret.
I went to the house of an older boy because he also loved video games, his parents were never there and so I was free. Sometimes we played together but, most of the time we played each on our own.
The game had become like a drug, I identified with the virtual characters and at night I even dreamed of being some of them.
It was challenging, but I was getting results, or so I thought. It was certainly easier and faster to get positive results, which I absolutely needed, than in real life. So, my virtual life became my real life.
I then moved on to playing violent games where anything was possible.
There I started to feel bad, I was nervous and aggressive. I also had bad thoughts in which I thought of hurting my parents who were always arguing and I couldn’t take it anymore.
At school one day a psychologist came to talk about internet and video game addiction.
I listened very carefully to what he was saying and I was very impressed, it seemed like he was talking directly to me!
It was my salvation.
I continued to play, but I was aware that I was hurting myself and I realized that I was not able to stop playing.
So, I took courage and went to the center where the psychologist I had met that day at school was part of and started my “detoxification” process.
I haven’t played in a year and I’m feeling much better. I have taken my life back in hand and I have started playing football and going out again. Every now and then I feel like playing again, but I know I shouldn’t and I’m afraid of falling back into that isolated hell.