Games and OCD

[Trust_Me_I'm_An_Engineer]

This topic is mainly for people who have ever suffered from any form of OCD. Is there anyone like this around? Most common forms of OCD are cleanliness obsession, and doing some actions multiple times (closing a door three times, switching a lightswitch three times.).

What I'd like to discuss - do you believe that OCD can be applied to video games? As a person who suffered from OCD in childhoold (and still having mild occurences in the adult life, but not as serious) I've found out first hand that video games are something I should stay away from.

For example, you play a very long game, 50+ hours to complete. About half-way you feel that you got bored, that you don't receive the satisfaction from this game anymore. You decide to drop it. On the next day, you start to feel this irresistible urge to pick it up again and finish, even though you know that you will get nothing from this game. You just can't leave anything like that unfinished, because it's a checkbox in your list left unchecked, and it drives you crazy. Stupid, I know.

Another example are side-missions. You finish the game but you just can't rest easy until you finish all side-missions, grab every collectible and explore every corner of the map. Now take a typical Ubisoft "tower simulator", where gathering collectibles and towers is a tedious, fruitless and absolutely useless work, but you have to fight this urge inside your head and put the game down. Some time it just makes you uncomfortable, and some times you just can't focus on anything else until you beat it.

And if those two examples are combined... man... you can forget about your career, relationship, or any productivity in your life... this is horrible.

Now, I know what you're probably thinking. First world problems, right? But OCD is the real deal and it makes a lot of people's lives miserable. As we're dive deeper and deeper into the digital world, do you believe a new forms of video-game OCD's should be classified?

Thanks for your time. After all, it is the second most precious thing in our days, right after health.

[dibil]

Ursprungligen skrivet av AnKun:

Ursprungligen skrivet av ☭ommunism101:

it IS affecting my everyday activities tho.
for example, i go to school:
*unzips bag* *gets books out for class* *zips / closes bag*
OCD: "bish you better unzip and zip that bag like 3 times again or i will haunt you forever"

I know that feeling bro. I had it when I was going to school and some time after that. But as I told, it will go away if you don't let it rampage too much. The brain works like that - the more you do this stuff, the more your brain will make you do it in future. And vice versa.

This is actually the first time I'm talking about OCD with anyone. But try the exercise that I did - the next time when you have the urge to repeat some action (close door, zip bag, whatever...), just do this:

1. Before you unzip the bag for the first time, stop for a second and tell yourself "Ok, I know my scum brain will want to fak with me after I do this, I will resist to matter what"

2. After you unzip it the first time, immediately turn away from the bag, and start breathing. Resist that ♥♥♥♥, even if it starts to physically hurt. It should go away in about 30 seconds, 1 minute max. After this proceed with whatever you need to do, and after another minute you will forget that you wanted to unzip that bag again.

I know it can be uncontrollable sometimes, like a sneeze, you just do it like on reflexes. That's why you should stop for a minute before the action itself, and focus on resisting it.

I bet normies who read this now think "man, those are some fakked up people", but OCD is more common then you think, many people hide it.

my problem is, my OCD has already grown to an immense strength.
i CANT resist. even if i try to, its literally like a demon. and it will eat my soul if i dont do what he tells me to. seriously, i like get sweaty and get extremely stressed out when i try to resist. it literally hurts. if i try to resist, it feels like something is putting a lot of pressure on my brain. like physical pressure.
about the same stress / panic level when youre talking to your crush lmao.

[Samwise]

I have ocd, and yes diagnosed and all. There's nothing ocd cant ruin. I cant play videogames too well, it really depends on game though. Rpg's or games with lots of missables or micromanagement, or even huge amount of graphics settings to tweak are out for me. I will keep either restarting the game, and or spend 15-25 min to check the settings, and still feel like something is wrong.

[TruebornJester]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Samwise:

I have ocd, and yes diagnosed and all. There's nothing ocd cant ruin. I cant play videogames too well, it really depends on game though. Rpg's or games with lots of missables or micromanagement, or even huge amount of graphics settings to tweak are out for me. I will keep either restarting the game, and or spend 15-25 min to check the settings, and still feel like something is wrong.

I've restarted so many games for the fact of something stupid like i shouldn't have picked that perk but a different one or I shouldn't have fired that extra bullet when there was no need to or the paint colour I picked on that car was the wrong choice so I better restart. Even things that don't effect the gameplay or progression but more a choice of immersion like I'll play this seriously and follow the lore or road rules vs just for fun and try stupid things then I change my mind part way through I can't just change I have to start it over.
Needless to say I haven't completed many games

[Trust_Me_I'm_An_Engineer]

Ursprungligen skrivet av ☭ommunism101:

i like get sweaty and get extremely stressed out when i try to resist. it literally hurts. if i try to resist, it feels like something is putting a lot of pressure on my brain. like physical pressure.

That's exactly what I felt. Like your head is getting crushed by hydraulic press. And yes, it's painful and extremely stressful, but the thing is, if you endure it for 1 minute, it goes away, or at least partially. I don't know though about you, maybe you've got it much worse than me. If this is the case, sorry...

Ursprungligen skrivet av Samwise:

I have ocd, and yes diagnosed and all. There's nothing ocd cant ruin. I cant play videogames too well, it really depends on game though. Rpg's or games with lots of missables or micromanagement, or even huge amount of graphics settings to tweak are out for me. I will keep either restarting the game, and or spend 15-25 min to check the settings, and still feel like something is wrong.

Oh yeah, sounds very, very familiar...