So starting this post with an Endgame quote aside, it has been years since I've done one of these but realized that I want/need to make a change in myself so here I am, once again attempting this; but how did I get here?
Technically when I was 16, but that's a pretty boring answer. And besides, I started attempting these at 18 and tried regularly into 19, but my last one was about 2 years ago now. Why am I returning here now? It's all because of a little game called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. As unlikely as that sounds.
I don't know if there's an overlap in the gaming community here but I figured I should say that if there is someone reading this who is playing/wants to play the game and hasn't finished it, here's a spoiler warning for it as I need to explain what happens and my realization as to why I'm here. So consider yourself warned.
Oh you're still here? Cool. So here goes. So the game follows a man named Gustave and the people of Lumiere who are fighting to keep their people/civilization alive as every year, the paintress paints a new number and everyone of that age gets erased from existence. Every day after this happens (called The Gommage) an expedition get sent out. And to make a long story short, this expedition succeeds in killing the paintress, only to realize that the paintress was the one keeping everyone alive, this entire world is just one big painting, the main character from act 2 onward, is dead in the real world and nothing more than an immortal effigy and the youngest member of the expedition is actual the youngest sibling of a familial conflict, with the Paintress being her mother. So after this, you fight the final boss, Renoir, the father who wants to destroy the canvas and bring the youngest back to the real world, where you (the youngest sibling Alicia) enter the heart of the canvas and see Verso (the effigy) enter behind you and you choose who to fight as to decide the fate of the canvas and the ending of the game. I chose Alicia's ending and saw everyone brought back to life, Alicia as the new paintress and Verso being forced to perform to the people of Lumiere. However, after I beat the game, I looked up what would have happened if I chose Verso's ending. And that's when you see the entire family mourning the loss of Verso, but ready and willing to move forward in life.
And that's when I realized something that took me almost 9 years to figure out. Since I was 16, every time something happened, be it a minor inconvenience or a traumatic, life altering event, I always ran to either porn, masturbation, or sex. And the greater the hardship, the deeper I'd fall into it. After noticing that I was jacking it 2 or even 3 times a day just to even be at an emotional normal, I realized that I need to stop running away from my pain by relying on cheap comfort and confront it head-on. No matter how hard it may be.
So that's why I'm back here now. To prove to myself that I don't need to put my hand in my dick or pay for some hooker (although I know that sex isn't against the rules of this war, I know that paying for it is a part of my vices and I'm not proud of it either) when things get hard, even if I know that in certain cases, especially last year when I was going through absolute hell (2 car accidents, investigated by my school due to false accusations, along with that class being incited against me and them going back and forth between harassing me and ignoring my existence, my house and car broken into, losing a friend to suicide, marking 1 year since I lost my brother) I had every right to use those comforts, I know that in the long run, this is only going to hurt me, so now it's time to leave the canvas and make a change for the better.
