EPTWell, here goes nothing
It started in 8th grade. I recall being pretty happy going into 8th grade and feeling like I fit in and had a lot of friends. I quickly realized that this was not quite the case, that I was really just a square block trying to fit into a round hole; I had no real friends or anyone to talk to. This led me straight down the path of depression, or at least that's what it felt like. My grades started dropping and I felt like my teachers all hated me. This was probably more due to the fact that I was too busy playing WoW, which I had started playing sometime that year. After starting to play WoW, I quickly found it to be a good replacement for my life, which I just did not like. I liked to play WoW, maybe even loved to play it, but it was just not sufficient. I needed real friends, real interaction, and real fun.
I probably ended my 8th grade year with a sub 2.0 gpa. I got a B- in history and that was my highest grade. I got a D- in english, C- in math, and somewhere in the D range for science (all of these grades are based on foggy memories though). Over the summer of freshman year, I played more WoW and I don't think I really changed much. I had signed up for marching band though, so there was a week of band camp. It's not really what it sounds like, we basically show up at the school every day sometime during the afternoon and march/play for a few hours, it's not an actual overnight camp. Anyways, I made a lot of friends there, most of them were also friends with my older brother, who was a senior that year. I pretty much changed instantly as a person, I was much more talkative, mature, and my sense of humor changed drastically. This didn't really change how I was still down on myself. I still just felt oppressed by my teachers and parents, like they were just out to get me. I was really sad all the time and I still had no motivation to do anything but raid in WoW, which essentially took up all my time outside of school. I wouldn't say I was addicted to WoW, more like I honestly just couldn't find a way to use my time that was more enjoyable or worth it to me. I just really hated life at that time. I had like all C's or B's that year and got disconnected from a lot of senior friends who went to college.
The summer following freshman year was a pretty good time. I made friends with a lot more people and went out to do stuff a lot. Though I lost some senior friends, I made a lot of friends who were a year or two above me (were sophomores/juniors, going to be juniors/seniors), so I was still pretty good in that aspect. I realized that I liked just sort of chilling and doing shit with friends, which I hadn't really done before. My religious views also changed, but I don't think this is the best place to discuss that+ Show Spoiler +
christian->atheist
The summer after sophomore year was like the one after freshman year except it went the complete opposite way. I pretty much separated from all my friends except a few (who I'm still friends with today) for a multitude of reasons. I had two good, core friends, who were pretty much at the center of my friend-circle the previous year, that I lost. For one of my friends, they just sort of slowly separated from me because from what I can infer, they just saw me as "uncool" or something since they might have realized how nerdy I am. They pretty much organized a lot of the times I hung out with a lot of people and they were pretty funny. The other one had a lot of relationship based disagreements with a few of my friends, one being my brother, and I pretty much didn't really want to hang out with that person anymore. I also signed up for Teamliquid on the 8th of June that summer, and it quickly became a large part of my life.
During junior year, I made an entirely new group of friends who were all from the grade above me. They were not really too similar to me, all of them looked down upon eSports and progaming, which were both becoming pretty important to me. Anyways, I hung out with them a lot and enjoyed it, though maybe in a different way than I had in previous years. This group of friends was completely different, into different music, had completely different personalities, but they were pretty much just more interesting people in my opinion. All right, big fucking change right here: I quit WoW. Cata fucking killed it, it was no fun anymore. This gave me a lot more time to devote to other things, like friends and other video games, and to do that I had gotten a new computer for christmas. This is pretty much where I stopped being depressed, though I feel like I was still lacking motivation to do school work back then. I started to care more about playing the trumpet and was determined to get into the higher-up band at my school, which I succeeded in doing. The auditions were for the following year (senior year or the year it currently is at the time I am posting this), so I didn't get to play in it that year. This year had an absolutely major academic change in it. In US History II, I did all the homework and all the assignments. I got the highest grade in the class on the midterm, a 94, and I just destroyed the class, getting exempt from the final (90 average or above). I had never, ever, in the history of my career as a student done this well in a class. It was entirely new to me and almost odd. I want to say that it was me finally realizing what I could do if I applied myself, but I don't think that's it. I was really happy with how well I was doing in that class, it made me feel really good to not have to go to school during the time people were taking the final for it.
Then the year ends. I still hung out with my friends over the summer a bit, but then they all left eventually and I still have not found any friends to take their place IRL at least. I still keep connected with them over facebook, which is pretty nice imo. The summer was pretty much me just playing non-WoW video games, and damn it was such a nice change. I didn't have to give a fuck about progressing through raids, dailies, all that bullshit. I got my Eagle Scout finished up over the summer, which is probably because I was playing less time consuming games. I also turned 18 so I needed to get it done over the summer. I played LoL, SC2, CS:S, Oblivion, Deus Ex: HR, TF2, and whatever the hell else I felt like playing. I literally had zero responsibilities that summer, so I pretty much just played video games 100% of the time I was awake. I also started working on a fantasy story that is kinda hard to explain (and would probably sound pretty dumb without actually reading any of it lol...). I was like 42 pages(double spaced ofc) into it until I decided to rewrite the last chapter I wrote of it and I'm like 40 into it now. I guess I got inspired since I started watching anime over the summer and a lot of animes I watched had really epic and awesome story lines + Show Spoiler +
(To Aru Majutsu no Index, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, Elfen Lied, and Code Geass+ Show Spoiler + to be specific)
fuck R2 though
And then...
Something happened. Something changed. Something just sort of clicked. I am confident now and I feel fucking great. I'm fucking obliterating my schoolwork like it's a wall made out of wet toilet paper and I'm a damn knife being thrust at the speed of light through it. I'm getting an A in math right now. I can't get over it, A FUCKING A! This would have been a fairly tale a year or two ago. I actually can't believe it either, it just feels so easy now,maybe too easy. I feel like my classes are too low level for me now. I already know everything in the physics class I'm taking right now. In fact today we had a sub and there were assignments posted on the board. I thought that the assignment we had to do was the one from the level above me; it was dealing with air resistance, which is probably something that we won't even cover in my class. I was getting excited to learn something that was interesting, something that wasn't graphing or distance/velocity/acceleration for once, but nope, we had to do a ton of easy problems that were distance/velocity/acceleration. I really want to move up in that class, but I think it might be too late in the year to switch. My trumpet playing skills have increased exponentially, and I really love playing it now. I just feel so good about life right now, I can't even believe I am the same person I was a few years ago. I kind of feel bad about how poorly I did in school previously, but I'm not going to let that slow me down. I always had a problem with my weight. Guess what happened over the summer? I lost 20 fucking pounds over the summer and I am still losing weight. What did I do to loose that much weight? Rigorous exercise? Nope. Dieting? Nope. Absolutely nothing? Fuck yes. I think it has something to do with the major attitude/mentality change I had. Now, I know that I'm still overweight, but I'm definitely lighter. Like, I feel like fucking nothing can stop me now. I just feel like I can do whatever the fuck I want to as long as I put my mind to it now. A negative side to my life practically no longer exists. I literally feel like I have leveled up IRL, it's almost scary. It's like I just went to bed over the summer and awoke to a screen in front of me that displayed
"You're really good. Maybe the best. And that's why it's so hard to get better. But you just keep trying, because that's the way you are."
and I put some points into luck, endurance, and intelligence. I guess I'm level 19 now, I wonder what levels 20, 21, and up will feel like.Lol wow I said "fuck" so much in that last paragraph, I actually had to go back and edit most of the fuck's out cause it was in like every other sentence....
TL;DR: Don't play WoW.
Bay life.
