Nick started to realize that the only time he wouldn't be thinking about his OCD was when he was playing video games. He came home one day with a PlayStation console, without discussing it with me. We were broke students and didn't have the money to pay for a PlayStation, but he just walked through the door announcing that he was going to start playing video games again. I was furious.
The video games quickly started to get out of control. He would stay up late, sometimes all night, playing and yelling at other players. Our dog would sit near the console just in hopes of getting some of his attention (like in the picture below). It quickly started to feel like I was his roommate instead of his wife, and that his real relationship was with his PlayStation. He was leaving classes and clinic early to go play video games. He was skipping the gym to play. He was exhausted during the day from staying up so late, or not sleeping at all. He was in a terrible mood when he wasn't playing.
I realized just how bad it was getting one weekend when we were visiting my family a few hours away in Florida. Nick wanted to drive separately. He wasn't sure if he'd want to, or be able to, stay the entire weekend - but he said he'd try.
He lasted a few hours.
I came inside and realized he was gone. I called him and asked, "where the hell are you?"
"I'm sorry, I couldn't do it. My anxiety and OCD is just so bad"
He had left me, and my entire family, without even saying goodbye. He went home and played video games until I got back.
I knew it was bad. But Nick didn't realize just how bad it was until we were getting ready to move to Colorado. We had just graduated. My best friend had flown in to see it. We were packing up our whole apartment and getting ready for the movers to take everything in their truck. I had to bring my friend to the airport and planned to head straight to my parent's house across the state for Christmas. Nick was tasked with making sure the movers got everything.
I dropped my friend off at the airport, drove to the house, and called Nick.
"When do you think you'll be here?"
"I think I'm going to stay one last night."
He knew he wouldn't be able to play video games while we were spending Christmas with my family, so he wanted to stay one last night just to play.
I was annoyed, to say the least. But there was nothing I could do other than get mad at him. And honestly, we had fought so much up until this point that I had no energy to start another fight; especially when we had just graduated and I wanted to spend time with my family.
So I told him, "alright, see you tomorrow I guess."
He called me back around 8pm and told me he was on his way. "I realized that I was sitting in an apartment, with no furniture, just to play video games. I was just going to sleep on a hard floor. I'm completely addicted and it's a major problem". I was pleased with his realization.
But there's a difference between recognizing a problem and actually addressing it. It took another 5 months before he would actually give up video games. More on that later.
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