"[LONG POST] GAD : hacking anxiety with Pokémon Go (and thank you)"

#PokemonGO: TL;DR : this post won't teach you anything new about Pokémon Go (and it may be a boring post). It's just me talking about how I'm taking advantage of my broken brain with the help of Pokémon Go as a therapeutic tool.Some of you may know me as the admin of Goptimiz, but what I've never shared with you is the mental disorder I've been living with all my life : Generalized Anxiety Disorder.About GADAs Wikipedia says :Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry, that is, apprehensive expectation about events or activities. This excessive worry often interferes with daily functioning, as individuals with GAD typically anticipate disaster, and are overly concerned about everyday matters such as health issues, money, death, family problems, friendship problems, interpersonal relationship problems, or work difficulties.Basically, my brain is in a constant state of extreme stress/anxiety. It spends all its time over-analyzing stuff and trying to figure out every possible outcome of every possible situation I may face (even impossible situations or situations someone else could face). Even the smallest idea or event gets analyzed as if it was a matter of survival.Living with an always-burning overclocked CPU between your ears is no easy ride. Even the smallest things (eating when I'm hungry, sleeping when I'm tired, talking to someone I like, playing a game I enjoy playing) are hard to do : the brain gets exhausted by the sole idea of doing these things. Most of the time, I end up not doing anything at all because my brain overheated and I don't have the strength/energy to do anything (I sometimes sit in front of my computer for several minutes without moving because I'm too exhausted to do anything at all).Forget about having a daily job, a normal social life, or anything that needs a minimum stability that lasts over time. Those of you who suffered from acute depression, burnout, bipolar disorder ... may relate to some extent.That's the way I'm wired (inside my head) and I can't do anything about it.About Pokémon GoThe only thing I can do is learn to live with GAD, maybe hack this anxiety to make it work for me, not against me. And that's what I did with Pokémon Go in several ways :OveranalyzingMy brain can't stop analyzing stuff ? Ok, let's feed it useful stuff to think about. Like, how to know how good a Pokémon really is, or which Pokémon is the best counter to XXX, what is the minimum IV% where a Pokémon becomes worth powering up, what is the best way to throw a Ball, what is the best way to manage my inventory, how should I name my Pokémons so I know everything about them just by looking at their name ...No estimations wanted here, my brain needs methods and results that are the closest to 100% accurate. How to do it ? Well, my brain was already working on it the second this thought came to my mind, I don't need to do anything other than wait until I find the most accurate/optimized solution possible.I found a good solution to a problem ? My brain keeps on thinking about it, looking for anything that can be improved or any mistake. Always questionning everything has some good sides : I can't stop trying to make things better. Might aswell use this ability to help other players, so anyone can play Pokémon Go at its maximum potential.That's why I created Goptimiz in the first place. It's a way to provide something useful to the people, maybe I even found a place in this world (that is not made for people like me).The outside worldGoing outside is very exhausting for me. I need a lot of preparation before going anywhere (I have to plan exactly where I will go, what I will do in the slightest details, anticipate everything that could happen during that time, ...). As you may have guessed, I almost never put a foot outside home (except for medical appointments).Since Pokémon Go came out, I've been regularly putting my Pokémons in nearby gyms (because taking gyms down is mandatory if you want to play the game at its full potential without buying PokéCoins) and going for walks in order to catch some Pokémons. Before Pokémon Go, my anxiety prevented me from going outside. Now, a part of this anxiety actually wants me to see the sunlight, that's a huge change !SocializingSocial interactions are one of the hardest things for me. I've never been used to communicate with people and those interactions are often unpredictable and very complex. That's enought to DDoS my brain with a huge amount of "what if" scenarios. I love interacting with people (and I like people in general), but I can only handle a small dose of social every day. If I spend 2 hours outside having a drink with friends, I'll probably be exhausted for several days and not sleep well for a whole week (even if everything goes well).Creating a website that is supposed to be used by the community forces me to socialize. A website that is not used by anyone is useless and totally not optimized : a real brain-damaging situation for me.In order to optimize my gameplay and my website, I also need to gather informations about Pokémon Go. The best place to do so is here, on this sub. This means I have to ask questions, share thoughts, and interact with people. Here again, a part of my anxiety now wants me to socialize instead of not talking to anyone. Win again !I'd like to thank TSR admins and the TSR community for this top quality sub. This place, where people use their brains, argue logically (most of the time) and aim to understand and make things better is a real blessing for me. You are giving my brain a nice amount of good things to think about, it's quite relaxing.Accepting imperfection and randomnessPerfection does not exist. This hurts me in many ways, but my Pokémon Go experience helps me deal with this.I still remember the first Snorlax I encountered : connectivity issues, got logged out of the game while in the catch screen, logged in again, clicked on the Snorlax, got errored out because it just despawned. Result : massive stress, 48 hours without sleep and 2 weeks of feeling drained of all energy.Even my website has a lot of places for improvements (just look at the home page, it's far to be the best design ever made). Some things are also missing (where's the fight simulation page I've been working on since september ?), incomplete (the FAQ) or poorly made (from my ultra-perfectionnist point of view).The good thing here is that in those cases, I know where the anxiety comes from. People suffering from GAD sometimes experience anticipatory anxiety : the anxiety just comes from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, so we can't "fix" the problem causing the anxiety.With all this, I can focus on fixing some things that increase my anxiety in order to learn how to get rid of it. For example, I'm currently preparing a full overhaul of my website that will fix most of its imperfections (and probably add many others), add a lot of new content (for example, the FAQ will become guides about Pokémon Go : formulas, tutorials and explanations of all we currently know about the game), improve the code and the way everything is calculated. I don't know when the update will be ready, but I'm working on it (a few weeks, a month ?).Here again, I'm working with my anxiety (not against) to create better stuff.ConclusionStill reading ?Thanks to my GAD, I managed to create a website I'm very proud of. Not because the calculations made on Goptimiz are accurate (that's the minimum my brain allows me to do, so I don't consider this as an achievement), but because it has allowed me to use Pokémon Go as a therapeutic tool that actually works.Thanks to Niantic, TSR and the community (you, reader), I finally found hope to live a normal life someday and I've started to learn how to use my malfunctionning brain to bring the world the best I can provide. The hell I was living in since more than 25 years has become a much better place now and it's still improving.THANK YOU VERY MUCH to all of you.PS : a lot has been passing through my mind since I thought about making this post ("What if ... ?", "How do I ... ?", "Is this even the right place for this kind of post ?", "Should I be ashamed ?" ...). Whatever happens, I'll just post this and try not to edit it too much. Also, I'm not a native English speaker, so there might be mistakes here or there.PPS : I you are suffering from a mental disorder too, always remember that it is possible to find a place in this world. Use your differences to bring the world whatever your disorder makes you good at (unless it's murdering kittens or popping children's baloons). It will do you good and it may also do good to other people. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2mzZ5KV