A Plea to the FFXIV OF Community

[KokonoeAiyoko]

If you ever start to feel like FFXIV or any game is becoming a job, the easiest way to solve that is to get a job, or if you have one, work more hours. Give yourself less free time. Not trying to be insensitive, this is genuine advice.

Oh, also... If you ever want to tackle anxiety head on, seek a therapist or spend a day researching it and try to come to some realizations.
At its core, anxiety is selfish. And I don't mean this as an insult, as we all can be. But when you get pulled into an anxious spiral, just who is at the center of all your worry? A good way to combat anxiety is random acts of kindness to strangers. Start at one per day, see how you feel in a month.

Anxiety in a lot of peoples cases is actually a physical issue and cannot be turned off by merely doing good deeds. It is not an act of selfishness, it's like saying feeling pain in your arm after getting it broken is an act of selfishness.

[NephthysVasudan]

Anxiety in a lot of peoples cases is actually a physical issue and cannot be turned off by merely doing good deeds. It is not an act of selfishness, it's like saying feeling pain in your arm after getting it broken is an act of selfishness.

Agreed. To call being anxious selfish is a foolish thing overall. Anxious is by definition a terror. In variations of it at best. From overkill to mild...they need to be encouraged to "take a leap of faith" in the context of this game. Not to accuse them of selfishness.

Issac's argument of anxious people being pushed into a spiral being inherently selfish is a horrible argument and I'd advise you (Issac) to never ever use that again if you have any aspirations of being helpful to others.

9 times out of 10 these spirals are induced by people who are selfish in-themselves in how they respond. Selfishness is a virus at best.

The key to understand is the root cause.
Stop treating the symptom....treat the disease as they say.
Can they be selfish? Yes. Does it mean they are selfish as a cause? NO.
I would also hesitate to suggest seeking therapy. We make too many presumptions about what they need or not need.
Your better off just listening..and less talking to them.
9 times out of 10 that's what they really want..someone to rant at and to listen to them.

People get the wrong message when we "Advise" them to seek therapy. We don't know who/what/where/when/how/which kind.

That is a judgement for them to make. Aside from the extreme cases/obvious situations.
Especailly when we are talking about a game.

[Sigma-Astra]

If you ever start to feel like FFXIV or any game is becoming a job, the easiest way to solve that is to get a job, or if you have one, work more hours. Give yourself less free time. Not trying to be insensitive, this is genuine advice.

Oh, also... If you ever want to tackle anxiety head on, seek a therapist or spend a day researching it and try to come to some realizations.
At its core, anxiety is selfish. And I don't mean this as an insult, as we all can be. But when you get pulled into an anxious spiral, just who is at the center of all your worry? A good way to combat anxiety is random acts of kindness to strangers. Start at one per day, see how you feel in a month.

I already do random acts of kindness towards strangers and genuinely try to be as good of a person as possible towards others. Those didn't stop me from trying to take my life when I had a severe moment of weakness and an overwhelming amount of depression and self-loathing.

I'm sorry, but, you're wrong if you think anxiety can be cured or forgotten by simply "trying harder to become a good person". Mental illness and anxiety isn't selfish. It's a legitimate problem that people continue to think is curable by thinking positive all of the time which sort of becomes the ultimate trigger and bane that sets off a lot of depressed and/or anxious people. If it could have been cured by reinforcing positive actions physically, as well as mentally, then we'd have less depressed people in the world which isn't quite the case of the matter. If these issues could have been solved with such simple methods, then they would have worked out for the majority by now. A lot of depressed people do not want to be told just to "think positive" or "things will get better over time", and a lot brush them off as you simply not wanting to listen or understand their pains, especially when their mind is already telling them repeatedly that you don't care about them. Seeking a therapist or some kind of support group is probably the better of the advice you've given, even if the option doesn't work out for everyone perfectly.

But, calling someone who is suffering from depression and anxiety selfish? Even calling the disease as such? It depends on the anxiety and depression really. These people don't want to do or think this way all of the time and they're not trying to be a burden on anyone, in fact, they already feel like they are a burden to you even when you don't perceive them as such. No one likes being called selfish and you're trying to combat a negative with another negative which never usually works out. Anyone suffering from anxiety usually has a trigger for it and at times, that trigger cannot be helped or it's a tick that they were born with. In some cases, it can't even be cured mildly through medication and therapy or controlled and merely just "lived with", I wouldn't necessarily call that person selfish as no one really wants to feel that way all of the time or at any time. Depression and anxiety are things never asked for by a person, they simply just happen and it's a scary and infuriating thing to combat when the person themselves don't even know what to do and why.

Furthermore, getting a job won't quite always fix it either and I have no idea how exactly that you'd even equate such a thing as being an actual resolve or cure for mental depression and anxiety. There are people who suffer from depression with jobs already and in some cases, the job could or would easily cause more anxiety to build up for them. However, earning money can be a necessary evil if a depressed or anxious person wants to live on their own independently. If their hobbies are putting strain on their stress levels, which would more or less be social and mental fatigue, then I'm not sure how a job would seek to help alleviate their distress as most jobs require you to put yourself into even more kinds of awkward and potentially stressful social situations, even desk jobs.

I know that you're not trying to be a bad person or wanting to come across as such because honestly who would even want to regarding this kind of subject matter, but really, your genuine advice doesn't even seem like good advice. It just reeks of naivety to me.

[xaventh]

These issues so many people suffer from are caused by the ease of fundamental living with very little effort put forth for our need of survival. Food, shelter, water, warmth, sex, these are all basic yet must have things that we are wired to put forth first and when it is so easily attainable it leaves all of our minds in a place where we are susceptible to negative things.

My suggestion is very simple to help rid the mind of negative ailments, put yourself in a situation where the things we take for granted must be earned by only yourself. Take a few weeks and set up camp. Real camping, no food no tents. Make your own shelter, find and prepare your own food, create your own warmth. A couple weeks relying on yourself to live on a basic level will do people who suffer a lot of good. Anxiety and depression quickly goes down the tube when your busy surviving on that level. People come back from a true experience like that with a different point of view on life.

[RiyahArp]

I think you have to guide the person to seek therapy, though. Part of therapy is having a professional evaluate you and decide what kind you do need. I think sometimes if its mild enough something like a workbook can serve as this in a pinch, but you have to develop the ability to understand your behavior and use coping strategies to deal with it. I really, really recommend people to seek it as soon as possible; otherwise you can waste years of your life trying to heal a broken arm by being positive, to use Kokone's analogy.

My suggestion is very simple to help rid the mind of negative ailments, put yourself in a situation where the things we take for granted must be earned by only yourself.

I think dude you are confusing alienation with depression. Like alienation is feeling bad because ultimately of moral or existential crisis, but depression and anxiety tend to be more your body itself working against you. I guess to use mmo terms, alienation is realizing how much of a waste of time the MMO genre is, while depression is spending 10 hours a day on the game doing nothing and anxiety is feeling pure panic the moment you step into a dungeon as tank.

[Ghastly]

I like the topics you make KaivaC and I agree a break sometimes is good. The FFXIV community brings a lot of thoughtful people together because FF is a thoughtful franchise, it's why we hate pvp (mostly), because pvp is thoughtless. But yes, I wish you peaceful and happy days ahead KaivaC and to push for the things that you feel are right.

[Sigma-Astra]

These issues so many people suffer from are caused by the ease of fundamental living with very little effort put forth for our need of survival. Food, shelter, water, warmth, sex, these are all basic yet must have things that we are wired to put forth first and when it is so easily attainable it leaves all of our minds in a place where we are susceptible to negative things.

My suggestion is very simple to help rid the mind of negative ailments, put yourself in a situation where the things we take for granted must be earned by only yourself. Take a few weeks and set up camp. Real camping, no food no tents. Make your own shelter, find and prepare your own food, create your own warmth. A couple weeks relying on yourself to live on a basic level will do people who suffer a lot of good. Anxiety and depression quickly goes down the tube when your busy surviving on that level. People come back from a true experience like that with a different point of view on life.

....Forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical here, but sticking a highly anxious or depressed person out in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on their backs would probably seek only to elevate their stress levels further, not reduce them. Camping isn't for everyone and dear god, I wouldn't recommend that towards anyone suffering with depression and anxiety to leave themselves stranded in the middle of the woods with no basic survival training or supervision. They'd be more likely to go suicidal in that kind of situation, especially if they're scared or extremely uncomfortable.

Adults aren't the only ones who suffer from mental issues, children do as well. I wouldn't let a child camp by themselves out in the middle of nowhere with wild animals and other things prowling about.

I think you've read or watched too many stories of people having a deathly encounter that brings life changing or altering views as a "cure all" for different types of scenarios here.

[NephthysVasudan]

....Forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical here, but sticking a highly anxious or depressed person out in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on their backs would probably seek only to elevate their stress levels further, not reduce them. Camping isn't for everyone and dear god, I wouldn't recommend that towards anyone suffering with depression and anxiety to leave themselves stranded in the middle of the woods with no basic survival training or supervision. They'd be more likely to go suicidal in that kind of situation, especially if they're scared or extremely uncomfortable.

Adults aren't the only ones who suffer from mental issues, children do as well. I wouldn't let a child camp by themselves out in the middle of nowhere with wild animals and other things prowling about.

People have really funny concepts of "helping" anxious people lmao. (Agreeing with Sigma)

[BillyKaplan]

It might be me projecting onto what they said, but I think people should back off from Issac a little bit. To begin with, none of us know their circumstances but here this entire thread spiraled into everyone dogpiling on them. Seems kind of double-standardish to do that in a thread whose purpose is about helping people and the effects forum interactions have on people.

And personally I don't think their advice is all that off the mark? They never said working more would cure depression, just that if your hobbies start feeling like a job maybe you should limit your free time. It's not that bad an idea, or at least find other ways to occupy yourself so you don't keep going back to what hurts you out of habit.
I also didn't take the 'selfish' comment that badly, though again, it could be me projecting. Anxiety is selfish. It gets hard to get out of your own head. Sometimes it helps thinking about other people. Break your monotony, change your routine. Force yourself to do a thing, and if it helps someone, so much the better.
Will it help everyone? Of course not. But all we can do is say what helped us, and hope it helps the other person too.

This thread is about how this community should help each other, and I've seen more than once things that outright offended people have saved other people's lives because that's what worked for them. Disagree all you want and explain why, by all means, but I think there's room for less pitchforks given what the thread is for.

[NephthysVasudan]

<snip>

I'll back off when people like Isaac stop calling anxious people selfish.