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Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

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Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#21

Post by ericcholis »

JonnieCache wrote: post #15
ericcholis wrote: post #4

Bit of personal insight here, I have anger issues that may border on bi-polar. I've never attempted a diagnosis or treatment, I just try to maintain a cool head. Most of the time I'm rational and level headed. However, there are certain triggers that just make me snap, completely flipping my personality. On more than one occasion, Starcraft 2 was one of those triggers. It only occurred after long heated anonymous mat…

Going from normal to angry is not "flipping" your personality. It's called bipolar for a reason: there are two poles, equidistant from a center. It's also called manic depression: when you're not depressed you're often high as fuck. What you described is called "getting really angry and losing your shit." It happens to pretty much everyone. EDIT: I probably should have written that like less of an asshole. Sorry - I'…

Perhaps I chose the word bipolar incorrectly, but it's the closest word that describes the situations I've encountered with my anger.

I guess the feeling is hard to describe; "getting really angry and losing your shit." doesn't cover it at all, especially in the situations I can remember. Everybody looses their cool, this is way beyond that for me. The situations where it's come up wouldn't constitute the level of rage I've felt.

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#22

Post by [deleted] »

luu wrote: post #18

This article has a lot of things which sound fake. Here's one: I was 6'2'', 168 lbs, 1% body fat When I was climbing competitively, I once had my bodyfat measured (by DEXA) as just under 3%. For climbing, pretty much any weight (even most muscle) is just dead weight, so climbers are as skinny and lean as any athletes out there, and I only very rarely ran into people as lean as me. I've known a lot of bodybuilders and…

[deleted]

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#23

Post by klochner »

Claudus wrote: post #16

It seems like he was already screwing up his life pretty well before SC2 was released: "Fast forward to summer '10. By now I had moved out of three apartments with my friends. I lost three jobs. I tried being a drywaller, and a welder twice. In between my friends and I would do odd-jobs that lasted a week at a time then would get paid one large sum, then blow it all on alcohol and marijuana. Living literally off of p…

I'm pretty sure the whole thing is a fabrication - the details all sound like what you hear from a bad liar:

  - 1% body fat
  - ran 12 miles and got bored (so he walked home??)
  - 20 one-handed push-ups on either side (but only 100 combined??)
  - became a monk
  - shrank an inch in a year do to inactivity

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#24

Post by K2h »

luu wrote: post #18

This article has a lot of things which sound fake. Here's one: I was 6'2'', 168 lbs, 1% body fat When I was climbing competitively, I once had my bodyfat measured (by DEXA) as just under 3%. For climbing, pretty much any weight (even most muscle) is just dead weight, so climbers are as skinny and lean as any athletes out there, and I only very rarely ran into people as lean as me. I've known a lot of bodybuilders and…

It is possible his 1% body fat was an estimate or used a different technique to measure. I know nothing about it really, but it is possible he was more interested in training than finding a doctor to give him exact stats.

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#25

Post by datalus »

lionhearted wrote: post #2

Sounds like he has the "rage to master" personality trait... very conducive to hardcore training and mastery in something like martial arts or a craft skill, or a discipline... also conducive to addiction or getting "way too into" hedonistic pursuits. I've got it too, and have made insane/amazing progress and gotten quite good at some skills, crafts, and disciplines in fast time. I've also burned many hours on someth…

Wow, I've never heard of this before, but I knew a friend in college who eventually lost himself to drugs for a bit (dealing it, using it too much). He had gone from passion to passion in 1-2 year cycles. During high school he was seriously into Unix and was incredibly into just hacking on it all day, every day for hours on end. The next year he decided he was over it, and got into really spiritual pursuits (converting to Islam) and wearing traditional garb and was incredibly active in a Mosque. Then, unfortunately, he fell into the aforementioned drugs episode.

Now, however, he's stabilized after going to therapy and has a pretty rad job doing pen testing. Anyhow, thanks for posting this link, I knew there was some sort of thing describing his personality trait :)

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#26

Post by goblin89 »

awef wrote: post #11
lionhearted wrote: post #2

Sounds like he has the "rage to master" personality trait... very conducive to hardcore training and mastery in something like martial arts or a craft skill, or a discipline... also conducive to addiction or getting "way too into" hedonistic pursuits. I've got it too, and have made insane/amazing progress and gotten quite good at some skills, crafts, and disciplines in fast time. I've also burned many hours on someth…

I've never heard of the term 'rage to master' but I've been told this behaviour is common in people with Aspergers Syndrome. Intense interests which takes priority in life only to be substituted with something else weeks, months or a couple of years down the line. Maybe you can shed some more light on the 'rage to master' personality trait you're talking about?

You probably should read the document lionhearted linked to:

> Google the term “rage to master” – click around, read some summaries, and then check out a couple academic papers. It will be very worth your time.

I'm not sure if it's related to Aspergers, but I don't think negativity[0] is warranted. Having an intense interest is good by itself; if it keeps for a few months—there you have a startup. =) The only problem is indeed that you have to master it, and not always do conscious attempts help.

[0] Although I might be mistaken and there wasn't any in your reply.

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#27

Post by tomku »

picklefish wrote: post #7

This sounds so fake :/ There are certainly video game addicts out there, it's a serious problem in korea and china, but I think this is a troll and/or pathological liar.

Could be, but the parts about game addiction itself are dead on with my experiences. I effectively lost six years of my life and dropped out of college. While I was playing the game, that seemed like a reasonable loss - it was only after I stopped playing completely that I realized how badly I had fucked up my life.

I should add that I don't live in Korea or China. I'm a guy in my late 20's who lives in rural Wisconsin, and I know several people that I met while playing that particular game that have gone through similar (though usually less severe) experiences. The ones that I've kept in touch in agree that they were addicted as well, and that it's probably a lot more common than anyone would like to admit for players of certain genres of games, particularly MMOs.

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#28

Post by Claudus »

luu wrote: post #18

This article has a lot of things which sound fake. Here's one: I was 6'2'', 168 lbs, 1% body fat When I was climbing competitively, I once had my bodyfat measured (by DEXA) as just under 3%. For climbing, pretty much any weight (even most muscle) is just dead weight, so climbers are as skinny and lean as any athletes out there, and I only very rarely ran into people as lean as me. I've known a lot of bodybuilders and…

I'm also a climber, I've been climbing about 20 hours a week lately, and using a cheap electric current device, I was getting measurements between 6% and 12%, and I have very lean muscle.

I have some friends who are physical trainers, and they were talking about low body fat once, saying it's very difficult to to get down to around 5% and lower than 4% is dangerous.

According to a random body building website thread, 3% is essential body fat... http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=143851451&#38...

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#29

Post by JonnieCache »

ericcholis wrote: post #21
JonnieCache wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going from normal to angry is not "flipping" your personality. It's called bipolar for a reason: there are two poles, equidistant from a center. It's also called manic depression: when you're not depressed you're often high as fuck. What you described is called "getting really angry and losing your shit." It happens to pretty much everyone. EDIT: I probably should have written that like less of an asshole. Sorry - I'…

Perhaps I chose the word bipolar incorrectly, but it's the closest word that describes the situations I've encountered with my anger. I guess the feeling is hard to describe; "getting really angry and losing your shit." doesn't cover it at all, especially in the situations I can remember. Everybody looses their cool, this is way beyond that for me. The situations where it's come up wouldn't constitute the level of ra…

There is a continuum between losing your shit, like normal people do, and having a full blown behavioural disorder that destroys your life. We all lie somewhere on it. There's probably another continuum that goes off in the other direction, with jesus hanging out on the end with master joshu or something.

If you need to put a label on yourself, intermittent explosive disorder or something is likely closer than bipolar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_explosive_disorder

There really is no reason to pathologize your behaviour unless you want to seek treatment though. There's a lot of shite in the DSM.

Re: Once a somebody, now a nobody: Starcraft 2 has destroyed my life

#30

Post by drivebyacct2 »

I am very thankful that I don't have a too terribly addictive personality. At worst, I'm addicted to "the Internet", but only in the sense that I'd rather be reading Hacker News or programming a side project than hiking or sitting on my ass watching TV.

That having been said, I have a handful of friends or acquaintances that have problems with addiction. Each of them ruined their college experience with a combination of: drinking, pot, alcohol and finally Adderall (to fix their attention, but ultimately fueling alcoholic-ish binges).

It's terribly sad because I'm an excellent student who spent basically three years straight getting high after classes and homework and continued to work on my github projects. Stopped when I moved away for an internship cold turkey and had a headache for a few hours and then was back to normal.

I hope that we can learn how to screen for these things or provide better treatments for people that get addicted to those sorts of psychological releases. Video games are a nice way for me to relax and I've been known to have a four hour binge with a bottle of wine on a Friday night, but I can't imagine literally losing control of my life.

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