Quitting made me realize I’m not really okay
TW: mentions of eating disorders, self harm, suicidal ideation and general mental health issuses
This post contains no meaningful advice, I just need a space to vent without being ridiculed for a chatbot addiction.
Edit: mixed up some minor details
I always had mental health issues, I don’t remember a time without them. My first suicidal thought was when I was 6. Ages 11-13 I most likely had binge eating disorder or something of the sort. I started cutting myself at 16 and developed anorexia. I didn’t really start using AI to cope with those issues specifically, but maladaptive daydreaming has been my main coping mechanism. I stopped using AI when my anorexia got bad in high school and managed to keep away from it for a year, but the moment I started recovering and gaining weight, I started using chatbots again. Mainly character AI, but it got shitty so I switched from platform to platform.
The past four months it got so bad that I decided to quit. I “weened myself” off it, cutting back on usage until I could go without it. Saying it this way makes me feel pretty fucking stupid, like I’m coming off some serious, fangerous drug when in reality it’s AI slop I’m addicted to. I digress. I’ve been fully clean for just over a week and my mind has been feeling much more clear. I already started to regain my ability to write, although daydreaming without a text component is still hard because my imagination was so severely impacted by LLMs.
During my major relapse into AI use, I didn’t have many negative thoughts. From time to time I would feel suicidal, but at that point I would just open my favorite character chat and immerse myself in some crazy story or vent to ChatGPT. I remember being convinced I was perfectly okay. I wasn’t a risk to myself or others and I felt far away from my emotions in a way. I knew I was depressed but I viewed it with a certain indifference. The way I’d explain it is that at the time I’d rather my life end but I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to end it.
And tonight, while I still don’t feel like I pose a risk to myself, I feel especially bad because there is nothing that can make me feel better. I can’t immerse myself in a series or a game or book, no matter how hard I try to enjoy something my mind keeps coming back to those terrible thoughts. Before AI, I dealt with this anhedonia by either starving myself or harming myself and I fear I’ll go back to either one of these habits. But what I fear more is relapsing into chatbots and losing my mind to them. I don’t know how to end this, I guess I just wanted to vent. I wish my life wasn’t so bleak.