Withdrawel Day One: Collecting My Thoughts

So... I need to take a break from my addiction, a game called Mabinogi. Even my friends there understood and are being supportive in any way they can. Guess this is evidence that I have a problem, that even they were worried and agreed that this was best.

It all started I think when the stress of my new position at work combined with the financial stress from after getting married. The "addiction" I have is based on, in my opinion, roleplaying games... multiplayer roleplaying games. What was a simple hobby became an addiction to a story being formulated by many participants. It became more important to me than chores, work, and even sometimes my husband. I did not even realize the downward spiral I had put myself in.

You see, I don't want to lose the hobby, the stress relief at the end of a long stressful day, but I do not want the addiction. I have chosen time and again hanging out on the game over hanging out with real life friends. I burnt out on my other stress relief method, knitting, some point after the wedding, because I had spent a long time working on things for it: my veil, my garter, and some gift bags for my girls. I forgoed most everything productive in real life for the sake of the game.

The stress at work was already pretty bad before I started having online chatrooms (talking with friends from my online games) open at work. My way of staving boredom, curing loneliness, and keeping myself sane became an even worse problem. But I'm not sure that is the only problem. Sure my boss is old-fashioned and does not get multitasking (nor does he probably see that I'm not the only one doing that, but since I don't have internet in my own office it's not as easy to be covert about) but I don't think the internet use is the only problem. This is because just this morning I hadn't even touched the internet computer for anything other than company email and he met me with hostility because he thought I hadn't done something that I actually had. Now part of that could be my fault because I might have forgotten to tell him that it was already done, but I had been working on normal day to day accounting in the office at the time.

My company has financial problems. I have no idea where payroll is coming from this month. He is stressed out and from my opinion he is looking for someone to blame: the government, the economy, me... opinions from some former employees was that we shouldn't even have taken on the 2 mil job that eventually screwed us, and put us in the hole with a large product that we have difficulty selling. I don't know whose fault it really is, but why does it have to be taken out on me, the technical editor who helped edit the proposal for that particular project back in the beginning of my time at the company (5 years ago) who has taken on the accounting job without accounting experience except for what I have had to learn on my own through experience.

I get it, the economy sucks and he's even admitted to taking advantage of us because of it. If Philip had a job and he could afford to, I'd leave. But he doesn't and we can't. So I feel trapped. I am not angry at Philip's lack of a job. I know he's tried and its difficult for entry level with this economy. But maybe I am angry but more so that I am angry because I don't want to be and it is out of my control. And there goes my downward spiral again.

And I have little to no desire to hang out with real friends lately. I'm not sure if this is new or if this is how it has always been. I don't like calling people and I normally don't really know what to do in a setting like that. That's Philip's strength, not mine. But they miss me. I don't even totally understand how I came to prefer online to real life. Perhaps the stress associated with work has reverted me to my college days... where I preferred online to real life because it was easier to meet people online or people I already knew than go out and meet new people, or I figured that everyone usually had something better to do than hang out with little ole me.