# Are video games good or bad as far as DP goes?



## Apathy (Jan 26, 2013)

I've been at this dp life for a total of 2 years now, 1.5 years the first time, 6 months now. My first round of DP, I played a fair amount of video games (an hour a day) now I'm playing 5 hours on weekdays and 10-12 hours on the weekend. I feel like it has a paradoxical effect on my DP, because it is a great distraction from the thoughts, worry, obssesiveness, and anxiety from DP. But at the same time its almost like the game draws you further away from where you want to be, reality. Thoughts?


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## ClassC (Jan 23, 2013)

There's a difference between getting lost in an activity and getting tied up with your thoughts. The way you withdraw from reality by playing video games is similar to reading a book, story or novel. You become immersed, intrigued, and fascinated. There's no harm in that. However, when your thoughts start to trouble you, you begin to start questioning, analyzing and trying to figure out things that are not even true. Video games and other activities of the like distract you from pointless worrying thoughts. Whereas thinking about your anxious thoughts withdraw you from everything else around you, by constantly trying to evaluate and analyze situations that don't even exist.

Sorry if the post is unclear, but I hope you understand what I mean.


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## SongBillong (Sep 20, 2011)

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with video games as long as you don't start depending on them too much for DP/DR relief. Not sure if you're doing exactly that by playing up to 12 hours a day though... Cut it down pal because DP/DR needs to be dealt with head-on and not just avoided!


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## miguelmalato (Jan 9, 2012)

Crayson said:


> I've been at this dp life for a total of 2 years now, 1.5 years the first time, 6 months now. My first round of DP, I played a fair amount of video games (an hour a day) now I'm playing 5 hours on weekdays and 10-12 hours on the weekend. I feel like it has a paradoxical effect on my DP, because it is a great distraction from the thoughts, worry, obssesiveness, and anxiety from DP. But at the same time its almost like the game draws you further away from where you want to be, reality. Thoughts?


It could be a coincidence, but my feelings of depersonalization/derealization first started when I began playing World of Warcraft.

And one thing's for sure. I never felt such an emotional connection with a video game as I did with that one.

I would advice you to devote your time in reading books rather than wasting it playing mindless games


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2013)

Things like video games absorb us -almost like a trance or meditative state, like when you lose all track of time watching a good movie at the cinema- and take our minds of things -or our minds off our minds 

Sometimes this is needed if you're in a very bad way, like dangerously bad, but it doesn't resolve anything.

I bet that for most of us the thought of spending the whole day with no technological stimulus whatsoever -not even TV- would be a scary thought. Then it would just be us with ourselves and the world around us.

But I can't help thinking that if we did we would all recover a lot quicker because then we'd have no option but to face reality and come to terms with it.


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