HealthyGamerGG - Gamer Rage

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

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Is this the kind of thing where, like, I should go see a therapist? Or, like, is this the kind of thing where can I, like, rely on you for emotional support? Or is this the kind of thing where, like, you just don't have the bandwidth to give it in that moment? Like, help me understand, like, what are we going to do about this? Because this is a problem for me. So now we're going to talk a little bit about being in relationships with people who seem to have unhealthy video game habits. Okay? So my 22F husband 23M takes his video game rage out on me and I don't know what to do.

Since the pandemic has started, pretty much the only thing we have been able to do in our time off is play video games. My husband plays a first person shooter game and I sometimes play with him. What is really bothering me is that when he plays these games and doesn't do well, he gets angry. He yells profanities and slams on his desk or chair arm so much that he broke it. after one of these episodes, even if I'm not involved, he will refuse to talk to me and go to bed without looking at or speaking to me. I feel really hurt by this and have gone to bed crying multiple times because of it. Every time it happens, I try talking to him about it, and I always express how it's making me feel, but nothing has changed. I always ask if there's anything I can do to help, but he won't talk to me.

I don't think it's fair that he takes his anger out on me. I've tried to say that it's just a game and that he should. try to have fun, but he doesn't have fun unless he does well in the game. I'm sure he feels upset, too, because there's not much else we can do for fun besides play video games. Maybe he needs a new hobby. What do I do when he refuses to communicate during these episodes? I've talked to him about this after he calmed down, but it keeps happening. Advice? After seeing everyone's replies, I want to add a little bit more context. My husband is definitely emotionally underdeveloped. His parents aren't the most emotionally involved people, even with their children. Now my husband's frustration goes past video games.

If he has had other hobbies, he tries really hard to learn everything he can about it, but we'll get frustrated and upset when he fails or does something wrong. He gets angry because he is failing. It's the same with video games. He's mad at himself, but it's pouring over into other things into his life. No, I'm not going to leave my husband for this. We are in our 20s and he clearly needs help or he'll never change. And I want to help him get that help. Thank you to everyone that suggested therapy or counseling. I'm going to talk to him about all of this today after work.

So, this is unfortunately an increasingly common situation that people find themselves in. We have romantic relationships, parental relationships, sometimes sibling relationships, where one member plays video games, I guess a lot. or it's unclear whether the person plays excessively in terms of hours, but that the video game seems to make them very, very upset and it negatively impacts their relationships. And that, like, absolutely sucks. And we're seeing this kind of happen all over the place, right?

Because what's going on is that as games become more engrossing, as they become more addictive, as we have some of these global experiences like the pandemic, the only option that we have is to turn more and more to video games or, you know, technology or things like that because our normal, you know, socialization, our normal ways of spending time together, as all of those things get restricted, we have no choice but to turn more to the video game. And so these are problems are becoming more and more common.

So the first thing that I want to say is that if you're in this situation, it's not your fault. You know, you're not doing a bad job as a sibling, as a parent, as a significant other. And also that I really respect that, you know, the knee-jerk reaction, that a lot of people have on the internet is to tell this person to leave this man-child, right? Like, the knee-jerk reaction is saying things like,

don't get married, or it was a mistake to marry him in the first place, or, you know, like, it's a mistake to be in the relationship. And I think those kinds of judgments are really, really easy to toss around on the internet, right?

Like, it's really easy to look at this person and say, like, why are you with this idiot? You know, like, you don't deserve this, you deserve better. And I think that's actually a, little bit, it may come across as compassionate, but it's not really. I actually find it to be quite judgmental. Because what we're not doing here is meeting this person where they're at. What are this person's goals? If we truly want to be compassionate and empathetic, what we should do is like

acknowledge what this person wants, right? And try to support them in terms of their own goals. It's not to try to convince them that their goals are wrong, right? That you're an idiot for saying with this man child. Like, you should leave him right away. And so because it's really easy on the internet to say, to look at the situation and to say these kinds of things. But presumably this person got married because they were in love because they care deeply about this person. And I do believe that like generally speaking, you should work on things that are broken instead of piecing out. Because if you just, you know, kind of piece out after giving it like, without giving it sort of a fair amount of effort and kind of like, you know, attempting to really fix it, I don't think.

think you're doing yourself a favor because the truth is that it sounds like this person believes that their husband is suffering on some level as well. It also feels like, you know, this person acknowledges that their husband is not the most like emotionally aware person, which we're kind of seeing more and more as well, and that this person wants to help their husband. And I really hope that they're successful, right? I really hope that they can do that. So today what I'd like to share with y'all is my general approach and some general advice about how to deal with someone who you love, who you don't want to abandon, who you don't want to give up on, right? Those are sort of the basic ideas because there's tons of advice for people who want to give up on their relationship

or like leave their partners, right? There's tons of people like GTFO. There's a thousand people to say that. But in my overwhelming experience, like giving up on your loved ones is like emotionally difficult. It's easy to say on the internet, hey, just peace out. You deserve better. But then like, what are you signing up for? Like online dating? Are you signing up for trying to meet people during the pandemic? Like, it's not easy, right? So what I'm going to try to do today is share my perspective on if you do want to work on a relationship, how you should do that, and especially with someone who has a problematic relationship with video gaming, how to address those. Okay? So let's talk about that. So the first thing that I kind of want to acknowledge, so this is like, you know,

gamer rage and relationships. So if you're someone who doesn't want to give up, and I'm not saying that you know, you can make the relationship work and that there may not be a time, that there may be a time where, you know, you really should leave the relationship. We'll talk about that a little bit at the end. So this is kind of the premise that you don't want to give up. So what I'd like to do for those people today is try to equip you to understand a little bit about how to position yourself best and communicate with these people in a way that hopefully is productive. Okay. So the first thing is we're going to talk about things like pitiful. false. So there are common mistakes that I see people make, which this person isn't necessarily making, but I'd like to outline those because I tend to find that these are common pitfalls that people fall into. The first is don't deliver feedback in the moment of crisis. Okay? So this is the most common thing that people do. So like when someone breaks the armchair is when people really like, have the conversation. So I see this a lot in our parent program too, which is like conversations around video games become like conversations around punishments. Like the two become one and the same.

And there's like, it makes sense that people want to have the conversation at that moment, right? Because that's when things are like at their most severe. But if we think about someone who just broke an armchair, you may want to say something at that point and you have every right to say something at that point. But let's think a little bit about how effective what you say is. So how open to listening and how open-minded is that person in that moment? So the first thing is I'm not saying you can't say something in that moment. It's probably a good idea to try it. But in general, so if we think a little bit about, you know, being a therapist, for example, we tend to talk about things outside of the individual

moment, right? So if someone like comes to my office and they're talking about a conflict at work or a conflict in their relationship, like they had an argument with their spouse like two days ago, by definition, we are not talking about it when emotions are high, right? Like, that's part of the advantage. And part of the advantage of the therapeutic model is that we have conversations about stuff when people are level-headed. So the first pitfall that people tend to fall into is that they try to give feedback or the majority of feedback when there's an actual crisis going on. Okay? So that's problem number one. The second thing, is don't jump to solutions.

So this is the other thing that tends to happen. So the second that the armchair breaks, someone will say, hey, you have to uninstall that shit right now. Like, this needs to go. Like, this is a huge problem. You need to do this. You need to do this. You need to do this.

And you may be right, right? So like, you may be more objective in that moment. You may like recognize, see things in a way that your partner doesn't. And so you want them to do particular things. I've seen this a ton in terms of, so I used to work at, you know, residential addiction treatment facilities. And like 30% or was it 30%? 50% of people were like going through a separation or divorce.

I forget the exact statistic. Right. And this is a kind of situation where they've got like a bad drinking problem. They've had a bad drinking problem for years. And so it's reached the point where the spouse is like, you take care of this or like we're getting divorced. There's talks about divorce. And so the spouse will come in and will like be like hard charging. And I don't blame them, right?

Because they've been hurt a lot by this. they feel betrayed, they feel let on. There's talk about change, change, change, and nothing ever happens. So the spouse comes in and has a list of things that need to happen. And you can even in moments where you browbeat someone, because in this moment of crisis, maybe the person feels guilty. So you can even get them to promise to never do it again. But these are not effective behavioral change solutions, right?

Because people promise all the time. And we even see this in this post where the person kind of that says, you know, I'm sure he feels upset too. I don't think it's fair. But there's somewhere in here where they say that, like, you know, we talk about it afterward, but it doesn't seem to change. Like, nothing's changing or nothing's getting fixed. Okay. So the second thing is don't jump to solutions. Like, we're not really there yet because you can provide them with solutions. They may listen. They may not listen. But generally speaking, people are not mentally prepared to engage in solutions. So the third thing is be careful about your

positioning. So this is like really, really interesting. So one thing, one concrete piece of advice is that oftentimes when you guys have talks in relationships, you're sitting across from each other. Don't do that. Sit next to each other. Go for a walk. Hold hands. You want to be side by side. It's really fascinating. The one thing that I have found, that is just so fascinating is when you're sitting across from someone, it engages in an adversarial dynamic, right? Especially if there's a table between you. And so I know it sounds kind of weird,

but like even I've noticed this with my own relationships is that when I have conversations sitting across from someone, it's very different from when I'm sitting next to someone. It's like bizarre. Like it's some weird, I don't know, like if there's data behind this or what. It's something that I was taught in residency. Right? So like my psychotherapy supervisors and stuff like explain this stuff.

to me, like, and it's absolutely true. Even in terms of the way that I set up my office, I almost never sit directly across from a patient. So like in my office, I have my furniture sort of set up like a U, and I kind of sit at like a 45 degree angle. So we're kind of like both like looking in the same direction. And we'll kind of like glance over at each other, but I don't know why it works. It just seems to really work. It's something that a lot of psychotherapists do and it's something that you can do. I mean, it's not like a therapy technique, right? It just helps you kind of get on the same side. okay so these are the three things don't be adversarial in your positioning don't have conversations

during a crisis and don't jump to solutions and so then the question is okay like what do you actually do what should i do instead right so we're going to talk a little bit about this but before we do this let's try to understand the experience of the other person so oftentimes people who wind up in this problem are is this person put it emotionally underdeveloped right so we see this a lot. So here on stream, we refer to this as alexathymia, which is the inability to recognize your own emotions. So you're kind of colorblind to emotions. So it's my belief that, you know, risk factors for alexothemia include male gender, include technology usage, include kind of familial conditioning, right? A certain kind of familial conditioning. So if we look at it,

society, this is thankfully changing now, but like it used to be what I was growing up, up, there was really only one emotion that men were allowed to express, which is anger. And any kind of guilt, shame, or fear was like not discussed, not talked about. And in fact, got transmuted into anger, right? So, like, if I am attracted to someone and I ask them out on a date and they say no, instead of acknowledging that I feel rejected and I'm afraid that I'll be alone forever, what I do is get pissed at the person. And you can still see this on the internet today.

where like the primary response to being rejected is getting angry at them. Right? So this is like all of these kinds of feelings just get transmuted to anger. So this is common. So the first thing is like, and so if this is the case, you know, we're going to have to help this person maybe like understand their emotions and stuff a little bit better. So the person sort of mentioned counseling or therapy, which I think is a fantastic idea. Right. So like that's absolutely one solution.

But even then, if you go straight to a solution and you, and you say you need to see a therapist, otherwise we're done. The person may comply, but they're not complying out of like, you know, they're complying out of fear, right? You're like kind of forcing them into it. And this is my key, key experience working with people with addictions is that like the best strategy to help someone overcome some kind of addictive or unhealthy behavior is not to use fear to like force them into things, but is to try to engage.

them as an ally, because once your husband wants to change their behavior, once they realize that they need to change their behavior, once they are actively trying to change their behavior, it'll be so much easier, right? It's so much easier than trying to force someone to do something. So how do we do that? The first is we're going to try to understand. Okay? So this is where, like, I would recommend just having a non-judgmental conversation about this kind of stuff. So you can ask questions like, what do you think about your gaming? Right? And this is where you have to be super, super careful if you're trying to have this conversation.

So a lot of times what people will do is they'll like use Dr. K's words, but in their mind, they're just waiting for an opportunity to like share their own frustration. They're not actually trying to understand. They may start with this and then they'll start asking questions like, don't you think it's a problem? Or if the person says, oh, yeah, it's no big deal. Oh, so breaking a chair is no big deal. This is going to fail. If in your mind you are not trying to understand,

but you're just pretending to ask this question to understand, this will result in, very good, chat, passive aggressive. It'll torpedo in the face. So you yourself need to try to understand. As long as the judgment in your mind is made up, you're like screwed. Like it's not going to work. okay so like be aware of this so you need to try to understand like what does this person genuinely

think about the situation do they think it's good do they think it's not good do they think they're going to get over it do they think i'm okay with it like what do they think about the situation so pretend for a moment that you would have to represent this person's view to a third party and any kind of question that the third party would ask you you should be able to answer about what they believe and what they think that's the approach you should take. Okay? What if they don't know themselves?

We'll get to that in a second because chances are they don't. So, as you start to ask questions that are open-ended questions, by the way, right? Not yes or no questions, not directional questions. So not this stuff. But what do you think about your gaming? They're going to, y'all will start to engage in discussion because they may not understand this stuff. But as long as you don't attack them with these kinds of questions, they'll start to open up.

And then y'all can explore together. And then they will automatically, it's kind of bizarre, but it's like some weird verbal jiu-jitsu. But as you sort of form non-judgmental relationships with people, they will start to like explore their feelings because they feel safe. Right. Whereas like, let's think a little bit about what this person's experiences. Like they can tell like, so presumably they're married. So they hear their wife who presumably they love crying themselves to sleep. How do you think this person feels? Right?

they feel hurt they feel powerless they feel guilty like oh my god i'm such an asshole but i don't know how to fix it i don't know what to say i don't know how to say i don't know what i'm feeling they feel paralyzed right they can tell that they're being an asshole but like how do they manage feelings of being an asshole what were they taught do you talk to your partner about being an asshole do you apologize like what were how are they conditioned okay and the worst they feel about themselves remember what do we do? We transmit that into anger and then how do we cope?

We play video games. And then break chair, feel guilty. It's happening again. And then we go back to my wife is crying herself to sleep. Rinse and repeat. You all see that? Right?

And at each cycle, all this stuff gets worse. And each cycle, this increases. And each cycle, this increases. because they don't know how to manage their emotions. Right? So the first thing is you just want to have a conversation about it or multiple conversations away from the crisis. Okay?

So the next thing that you want to do is kind of check in with them about having conversations. So when you have a conversation, you can ask at the end of the conversation, hey, so we talked a little bit about like gaming and stuff. I'm wondering, and this is where, especially if they're lexathymic or they're emotionally underdeveloped, you may have to put specific phrases for them to deny. So you can start by asking, what did you think of this conversation?

But then you can even ask them, like, did you feel like I was attacking you? Did this conversation make you feel guilty? Did this conversation make you feel angry? Did this conversation make you feel like, I don't understand? Did this conversation make you feel ashamed? Right? You can start to ask these explicit questions. And they'll be like, oh, yeah, maybe I did feel angry.

I did feel ashamed. You know, and just listen. And then like, kind of check in with them and be like, then ask for permission. Are you okay if we talk about this again, like maybe a week from now? Are you worried that like I'm going to like this like, do you feel like I'm leading you into a trap? I'm really not. I'm just trying to understand.

Like what, you know, what's going on here? And this is where as you do that for a little while, you can sort of. authentically, like, you can absolutely be authentic and you can say, you know, if this is your partner, I would just say it in a non-passive aggressive way. You can sort of lay your boundary and then kind of ask an open-ended question. So you can say like, it really hurts my feelings when like I'm crying and you won't like talk to me. And then you can kind of, and this is the key thing. Now what you want to do is recruit them and problem solving. Right? You can state how you feel, absolutely. You can state your feelings. Recruit them for problem solving. Instead of saying,

you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this, ask them. So the next time that I'm feeling this way, what should I do? And what can you do? Like, what do you think about this? Because generally speaking, if this kind of behavior is going on, I would bet 95% chance that the person, the husband in this scenario, like, recognizes that there's a problem. Right? And so what you want to do is recruit their help, not order them to do things or make them feel guilty. Now, some of this stuff may create feelings of guilt, which is fine. Like, that's okay. Right? Like, it's okay to, like, evoke some amount of guilt. But you don't want to use these kinds of passive-aggressive things. Like, if you need to cry, you need to cry. Like, that's okay. Like, you know, express your emotions the way that you need to. But at some point, you want to recruit them from problem-solving and, like, come to them and say, remember, this is like, so a week ago, I had a really rough day. Like, I felt really alone. I felt like, you know, I wanted to spend time with you, but you wouldn't talk to me. I felt super hurt.

What are we going to do about that? Is this the kind of thing where I should go see a therapist? Or is this the kind of thing where can I like rely on you for emotional support? Or is this the kind of thing where like you just don't have the bandwidth to give it in that moment? Like help me understand like what are we going to do about this? Because this is a problem for me. And I recognize because now the key thing is that if you understand stuff about them, then you can include that in there.

Right? And that's what makes it non-judgmental. So you can say, like, I totally get that, like, you feel alone, you feel frustrated. This is the way that you connect with your friends and that your friendships are important to you. So I'm not saying, don't, you know, stop playing video games entirely. What I'm saying is, like, how do we, like, fulfill that need that you have to play games online or connect with your friends? And at the same time, like, make it so that I'm not crying myself to sleep. Like, how do we fix this?

And generally speaking, when you recruit them for problem solving, they will make suggestions. And now the whole ball game has completely changed. Because instead of telling them, hey, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this, they need to do this. They are becoming active participants in solving the problem. Right. Number four says recruit them for problem solving. Like now the whole ball game has changed because they're actually going to like make an effort and it's coming from them. Now this is where you may have to start to, you know, set boundaries and stuff and like hold them to a particular standard.

Absolutely. But I would say like these four steps are that. foundation of how to approach someone who has like a problem with gaming, right? You want to try to understand their perspective first. You want to talk to them about talking to them. Like what is the nature of our conversation, right? And this is where you can also do something that's kind of like a more advanced technique called going meta and something we train our coaches in, which is you can talk to your husband

a little bit about like what is the way in which we solve problems in this relationship. So if you have an issue with me, like, how do we fix that issue? If I have an issue with you, how do we fix that issue? And you want to be plain. He knows what you're talking about. You know what you're talking about. So you can say, like, you know, I have some concerns about your gaming. But before I wanted to jump to a judgment, I was just thinking, like, let's take a step back and figure out how do we as a husband and wife communicate problems in our relationship.

I'd like to understand and establish that. Right. And I also would love it like because like we've established that like you may have issues with me. and I'd love to hear about them. Because I have a concern about your gaming, absolutely. But it occurred to me that it was actually kind of unfair and premature for me to just judge you with that issue right away. And instead, like, how do we solve problems?

And then once you develop a frame, right, is it go to therapy or is it talk things out between us? Is it have gone to, you know, go on a walk once a week where we like sort of like sit down and run through like ups and downs of our relationship? Like, what's the nature? Like, how do we solve problems? Like, what's the right way to apply to a week? approach this. Right? It's like if you go to your doctor and like you've got a lump, you're like,

okay, doc, what do we do about the lump? And then like your doctor will say, okay, we do this, this, this, this. I mean, this is a little bit different because y'all are both, you know, on the same level here. But you're having a meta-level conversation and usually meta-level conversations are less emotionally charged and will be like engaged less defensive behavior. Because you're not talking about the problem, you're talking about how to talk about problems, which is very healthy in a relationship to begin with. And as you kind of have this meta-level conversation, okay, so like once a week, conversation sounds okay with you.

Why don't we talk next week and you can kick things off? So if there's anything that I'm doing that is really concerning you, you can let me know. And so this is where, you know, once you start recruiting them from problem solving, then you can offer solutions. So you can say, what do you think about therapy or counseling? Because the other kind of ironic thing is that when people feel, you know, guilty, they oftentimes do not want to do therapy or counseling.

It actually, like, they feel worse. They're like, oh, I should be able to handle this on my own. I'm such an idiot because my wife is crying herself to sleep every night, and I can't fix it on my own. Right? So this is another thing that men tend to be taught, which is like self-reliance. Also true in Asian-American culture, by the way. One of the reasons that it's an interesting study I was looking at recently,

that despite the fact of regular, I mean, equal amounts of suffering from mental illness, people of Asian-American descent are much less likely to seek treatment. And the main reason is because they believe in self-reliance. So they're more likely to read self-help books and less likely to seek treatment externally because they think they should be able to solve it on their own. Right? So if you're someone who's struggling to have a conversation and work on unhealthy technology usage with someone close to you and you, number one, don't want to give up on them, don't want to break up,

first thing to understand is there are a couple of common pitfalls. don't deliver feedback at the time of crisis. Let people calm down. Let people be a little bit more open-minded. Let them not be emotional. Second thing is don't jump straight to solutions because you may not understand the problem and they may have solutions of their own.

Once you start forcing people into solutions, they'll get defensive or they'll feel bullied into engaging in the solution. And this will result in things like promises that are then broken. Right? Because it's not, the motivation is not intrinsic. It's not coming from them. The motivation is coming from a fear of what you're going to do unless they say yes. And then they're not really working for you. They're just like they're obedient

as opposed to motivated or inspired. Third thing is there are some positioning tips. Right? So like walk, go for a walk, sit next to them, hold hands, things like that. I mean, this also depends on the nature of your relationship. Okay. In terms of what to do, start by understanding. This isn't just ask some question and then be passive aggressive depending on their answer. So some people will sort of ask an open-ended question and just wait to attack. They'll be laying, they'll use an open-ended question as an ambush. So the standard that I would recommend for open-ended questions is imagine you would have a conversation with a third party for one hour. And any question that that third party would ask you about the gaming behavior, you should be able to answer. Why do you play games? You should be able to

answer that. How do you feel when you break a chair? You should be able to answer that. What makes you want to play games? What makes it hard for you to play games? Do you want to cut back? All those kinds of things. Right? How long have you been playing games? So really genuinely try to understand their perspective.

Check in with them. So as you have conversations, check in with them. Be like, hey, how was this conversation with you? Did I step out of line? Was it okay? Can we do it again? Lay your boundaries. You can be authentic.

Right? So you don't want to start here. You actually want to start with the other two. But once you understand their perspective, you want to share yours. And hopefully they'll act. start picking up and start asking you questions too. And then next thing is recognize that y'all are on the same team. So it's not necessarily your responsibility to come up with solutions.

In fact, it's not exclusively your responsibility. This person should be taking responsibility too. So ask them, hey, what do you think we can do about this problem? Right? Once you've listened to them and you've made it clear that you want to understand them and you approach them non-judgmentally and you've stated your problems, you can ask them, hey, what do you think we should do about this? Another key thing, this is not one conversation.

This is like at a minimum three conversations, okay, spaced out by at least 48 to 72 hours. So you don't want to get to the problem solving in session one. You want to like wait until convo number three. And then if you need to, you can have a meta-level discussion about how we solve problems. Like in this relationship, like what is our approach? like how are we going to make this work? So the people in this example are pretty young. They're 22 and 23. So these are very important conversations to have. Instead of breaking up with them, just start to figure out, okay, like we're going to be together presumably or we want to be together for like 50 years.

How are we going to manage conflict between the two of us? And hopefully as you sort of engage in this stuff and we've seen this a lot in our parent program, I've seen it a lot in my own relationships, advice with friends, things like that, that when you start really working towards a common goal, when you try to understand someone instead of just blame, them, when you acknowledge their experience as well, that's when you start to really recruit them, they become motivated and things start to move in the right direction.