Getting too emotionally invested as a player

[Weirdo]

No, my response isn't healthy but it's not about my masculinity. There's also a bit of a difference between pouting because something bad happened to my character, and lying awake in bed for hours thinking about whether the people keeping that poor dwarf captive really would have killed him anyway if we didn't try to remove the bomb from his chest; or how in the world my knight is going to save his love interest from a pack of sadistic werewolves; or feeling guilty about the fact that we were lured out of town and left it open to attack from undead cultists, resulting in the death of the sherriff and high priestess and my character's friend's son, and I can still see their butchered bodies hanging on meat hooks if I think too long about it.

[Weirdo]

It's going to take me a minute to respond to the rest of the thread, but thanks for the support and I do want to clarify that I enjoy being emotionally engaged in the game, I'd just prefer to be able to disengage when the game is over instead of being kept up at night.

[Lamontius]

I have dude parts
I like baseball and football and MMA and other sports
I like beer and whiskey
I am married to a lady who is smart and rad and pretty
I like lifting heavy things and being strong
I am good with tools and building things
I have a pretty gnarly five o'clock shadow
I drive a truck
I work hard

I am pretty sure I am a man

but maybe not

because most of what is being said about being a man in this thread sounds completely terrible to me

[Duiker]

I start to wonder what it takes to be a man. Well I learned to drink & I learned to smoke & I learned to tell a dirty joke. If that's all there is then there's no point for me.

[Dave Justus]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but it doesn't seem to me that the Weirdo is having trouble with too much anxiety over his character or feeling depressed when bad thing happen to his character, it seems to me that what is happening is, after a game, his mind continues to race thinking of different possibilities, different ways he could have handled it, and thus he can't sleep.

This isn't particularly an emotional issue, it is insomnia.

I know a thing or two about that myself.

Obviously if it is effecting you negatively, you need to find a way to deal with it. But if, as I understand, the problem is that you can't sleep after gaming, then that is the problem you need to focus on.

I'll assume it isn't severe enough to require some sort of medical intervention. Sometimes getting some exercise an hour or two before bed, helps. Mostly though my strategy is to cope by planning. If something is likely to get my mind going, I try to make sure I don't have early plans the next day. Not feeling a 'rush' to get to sleep ironically makes it easier.

Lastly of course, their is the occasional sleeping pill or stiff drink or perhaps some of the halfling leaf if that is your sort of thing. Obviously any medicinal or semi-medicinal substance should be used sparingly enough that it doesn't cause negative issues itself.

Anyway, that is my advice, assuming I've correctly diagnosed the problem.

[Jiggy]

Dave Justus raises an interesting point:

Weirdo, are you typically gaming in the evening, and then going to bed very soon after? I've found that if I do something like build a character or build a Magic: the Gathering deck right before bed, I can't sleep because my mind is still processing all the options. I had to make a rule for myself that if I do that kind of thing anywhere close to bedtime, I need to do something easy (like bust out the SNES for 20 minutes of TMNT4) to wind down before bed so I can sleep.

Could your issue be something more along those lines, rather than "over-investment"?

[Ryan Richter]

wierdo,

It sounds to me like you should go to therapy. If your worried that they'll just tell you to stop playing RPGs. Don't be, just explain how RPGs are a positive part of your social life, and you just need their help to get perspective to make it better. Any therapist that is unwilling to help you fix the problems YOU want to fix is not very good. So just take your buissness elsewhere.

The trick for me with overcoming the stigma of getting help, is one of choice. I'm choosing to become a better version of myself by whatever means. Not hiding and getting by hopping no one will notice and make me go to therapy.

In any case don't get the help you "need", get the help you want.

[Piercedthrough]

Lamontius wrote:

I have dude parts

I like baseball and football and MMA and other sports
I like beer and whiskey
I am married to a lady who is smart and rad and pretty
I like lifting heavy things and being strong
I am good with tools and building things
I have a pretty gnarly five o'clock shadow
I drive a truck
I work hard

I am pretty sure I am a man

but maybe not

because most of what is being said about being a man in this thread sounds completely terrible to me

You, sir, just earned yourself a free beer if you're ever around my neck of the woods.

Well said.

[Liz Courts]

Removed a bunch of posts and their responses. There is absolutely nothing inherently "masculine" about dealing with your emotional responses to situations—that's an inherent part of life, not gender. Telling somebody to "man up" is utterly unhelpful, not to mention insulting, and has no place on paizo.com. Having an emotional response to a game you've played, a story you read, or art you've viewed is the reason we partake in these experiences. And sometimes we need to take a step back and do something else to process those emotional responses before doing it again. Again, that is life, and nothing to do with your gender, your Myers-Briggs personality type, left or right-handedness, phase of the moon, or preferred dice colors.

[Christopher Anthony]

Even if purple IS the superior dice color.

[Weirdo]

I have a set of rainbow dice - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, all in the same style. I use them for rolling iterative attacks, natural attack sequences, or other multi-roll actions so that I can easily determine which die goes with which attack based on colour order.

Ok, let's start with the things that multiple people have mentioned:

I will go back to therapy. Cost is covered. I've been waffling about whether I still “need” it but I guess I do.

I don't think it's entirely insomnia. Our game times have shifted to weekend afternoons over the last year or two and so I often have about 4 hours between the end of the game and bedtime. I also often find myself ruminating the day after the game. But insomnia is probably a contributing factor since this isn't the only thing that keeps me up at night.

Given that I do usually have that time, a post-game activity to get my mind on something else sounds like a good idea. Currently I usually make dinner and tidy up after a game, but that leaves my mind a lot of time to run in circles.

Several people have mentioned exercise. I bike communte so that works out to about an hour of exercise 5 days a week. However, I often ruminate while on the bike (it's a pretty safe, straightforward route). I don't usually exercise immediately after a game so that's something to try.

I do GM and am currently alternating running a game with the high-drama one I'm playing in. I find it much easier to get distance from the plot as a GM, but when work is feeling particularly stressful I usually get over-critical and over-anxious about my GMing as well.

My group and particularly the GM of the high-drama game helped me realize that my lack of distance from my characters was a key problem, and that my work issues were contributing (so I went to therapy for that). We'd also been having a hard time finding the plot in the game (it's a bit more player-directed) and that had been frustrating, so the GM gave us a nudge in the right direction and we started accomplishing more stuff, which was great, but as some have mentioned occasional failure is part of a good story. In fact the last session was supposed to be a character-building moment for the party healer.

[Weirdo]

Game style fixes:

thegreenteagamer wrote:

In the meantime, since that will take a while to really kick in, you have to do some patch-ups. This won't fix it all the way, but basically some jury-rigging to get you through. Your problem, you say, is you become too invested in your character. One thing I would suggest is switching to third person during the game. Don't say "I attack with my claws", say "Paul the ripper attacks with his claws". It will help to cut the immersion a little bit, but still let you be collaboratively storytelling. Perhaps make a character that's different from you on some fundamental way that you could absolutely never imagine yourself being. I often make sociopathic villainous freaks simply because I personally couldn't be that kind of guy, ever, for one example.

Third person is a great idea. I'm realizing that in the last session when we were putting together a plan for the surgery I kept saying “I don't think there's anything I can do to help” which is rather more of a discouraging thought than “My character is a monk/bloodrager, surgery isn't exactly her thing."

I do find I can relax more with characters who are very different from me – like my bloodthirsty tiefling barbarian from a previous apocalyptic campaign, or my maniplulative and extremely promiscuous kitsune bard. Usually, though, the characters that I enjoy most and that stick with me are those who I empathize with more strongly – the community-minded druid trying to deal with the responsibilities of leadership, the inquisitor suffering from survivor's guilt and a sense that he's failed to protect those he cares about and to live up to his own expectations for himself, or the current idealistic bloodrager who is coming to realize just how terrible people can be to each other and doesn't know how to fix it.

Thanael wrote:

Maybe organizing sessions to stop at different points might be helpful? Stopping with a cliff hanger instead if a resolution is normally used to get players more invested, but in your case maybe it helps offset ruminations of "what if I did something different ?" to a more proactive "what should I/we do next?".

A different stopping point would have helped in this case (we'd been wrapping up a very successful rescue mission when we went back to make a final sweep and found the guy with the implanted bomb) but cliffhangers are probably not an improvement – from past rumination experience, what's coming next may be somewhat more proactive but it doesn't feel less stressful.

Cintra Bristol wrote:

Also, seriously consider whether it's the tension in the game, or another player's responses to it, that are causing the stress. If you're feeling like you don't have a lot of control over things in your life, and then someone at the table is making "wahoo, don't care about the consequences" decisions that drag the whole group into these sorts of scenarios, then maybe you need to enlist that player to approach things differently for a bit.

That has been an issue for me in the past, but not with this particular group.

Tacticslion wrote:

Since everyone else took all the good advice I'd've come up with (and then some), I'll go with the bad advice: play a one-shot in which you take whatever strategies you want to make an ubermench and enjoy. In this case, it doesn't mean characterization or story are thrown by the wayside, but rather that you simply take EXTREME POWAH as a gaming thing for a one-off. It can feel good and empowering to do so.

Heck, maybe even play some one-on-one with your fiance. Grab a Master Summoner gestalted with an uber-Shaman or something, with a succubus (redeemed, naturally**)^ or nymph^ as the base race.

^ There is a belt or elixir if you want to keep base-canon creature but still play a male, or you could play a variant, perhaps "born of a curse" or something (which could give you license to drop redundant spellcasting, explain the gestalt or mythic, or whathaveyou, etc.)

I'm perfectly happy playing female characters. I could have a lot of fun with a succubus or nymph. A redeemed succubus pretending to be a nymph? The possibilities...

We are planning a level 20 one-shot as a pre-wedding event for our gaming guests, featuring our favourite characters from past campaigns. I'm pretty pumped. Also my fiancee is starting a lighthearted gestalt campaign for when we want a break from the more dramatic stuff. I am playing a Drunken Monk // Alchemist with MAGIC BOOZE! Not really a power-fantasy combo as gestalt goes (I drool over Monk//Druid) but it's a concept I've wanted to play for a while and as mentioned above I tend to have a more relaxing time playing characters whose main goals (owning the best bar ever!) are very different from mine.

[Liz Courts]

Maybe also try in-character journals? That might help divest yourself of that mindspace post-game (and also provides a dandy method to keep track of what's going on in-game).

[Weirdo]

Specific comments on general issues:

Tacticslion wrote:

As you're proud of your accomplishments, you identify with your character, and you're having problems in-life right now, it may well be that such immersion plus in-character failure is, instead of allowing you to escape, causing the real-life frustrations to recursively pile back up. "Oh, I just felt this earlier today. At work. Yep: sucked then, too."

Nailed it.

Cintra Bristol wrote:

Finally, you need to find some way to regain a feeling of control over your life. Outside of work, increasing the amount of exercise you do can help improve your mood - get outside and walk daily, if nothing more. And in particular, if the work environment has been frustrating for a while, consider if it's likely to get better anytime soon. If not, it might be worth exploring other job opportunities in your area - even if you don't end up jumping ship, you'll feel better once you establish that you could if you needed to. Also look into professional networking opportunities in your area - if there is a networking group for your profession, someone there might be able to suggest a way past the current low-results work issue (depending on what kind of work you do - most likely to be helpful for technical fields), or it might just be helpful to talk with other professionals about the daily frustrations of your line of work.

I'm in research. My co-workers and boss are helpful and I've managed to make some progress in the last month but my boss has also asked me to start looking for other projects in case the one I've been shovelling work into needs to be abandoned. That's pretty common in research and is about as close as I'd get to jumping ship - it's a good lab environment and there's nothing else I realistically want to do with my life right now (even if research doesn't love me back).

Tacticslion wrote:

I also wanted to say that, regardless of aught else, your accomplishments in posting here, on Paizo, both in tone, style, and presence, are really appreciated by me, and, I know for a fact, by many others. So you can, at least, feel good about that! And feel free to post in my thread (as apparently I have one now... *shakes fist at Jiggy* ;p).

* Okay, uh, that sentence... that came out wrong, but it's not my fault that you chose an insult as an alias! ...! ... ... >.> (It's an awesome, handle, by the way.)

Thanks! I'm really glad my posts are appreciated, sometimes I feel like Ii'm just killing time on the boards. I don't need to post on your thread, though, when you're favouriting everything I post here. :)

Ciaran Barnes wrote:

I have spend a lot of my life in my head as well (moreso in the past), and I promise I understand. Career and family very rarely allow me the quiet time at home that I used to take for granted, and it drives me a little nutty sometimes. Introversion is part of what got me into RPGs in the first place. Maybe I understood your post incorrectly, but I inferred that introversion was causing you distress, instead of comfort. *If* that is the case then you need to be less introverted, but how that is acccomplished is something I know not. If I inferred wrong, then I apologize. I did not mean to offend.

No problem, I know people with social anxiety and can see why you read my comment that way. I was just trying to explain why I don't generally find parties an appealing pick-me-up.

Thanael wrote:

Weirdo wrote:

Interestingly enough my PC had a talk with the healer afterwards that basically represented the advice I really wish I'd take about dealing with failure - but haven't quite internalized yet.

So, what was the advice?

That if you cannot take individual failures and setbacks in stride and learn from them you will not achieve eventual success. I believe the character's wording was “We've lost a battle here but we can still win the war so long as you do not lose faith in yourself.”

[Tacticslion]

Weirdo wrote:

I have a set of rainbow dice - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, all in the same style. I use them for rolling iterative attacks, natural attack sequences, or other multi-roll actions so that I can easily determine which die goes with which attack based on colour order.

SO COOL!

Weirdo wrote:

I don't think it's entirely insomnia. Our game times have shifted to weekend afternoons over the last year or two and so I often have about 4 hours between the end of the game and bedtime. I also often find myself ruminating the day after the game. But insomnia is probably a contributing factor since this isn't the only thing that keeps me up at night.

Well, if you ever do, regardless of what it's about, feel free to post here! We welcome ideas, ruminations, and just plain "this happened today" insomnia things! And anything else keeping you up at night!

Weirdo wrote:

Specific comments on general issues:

Tacticslion wrote:

As you're proud of your accomplishments, you identify with your character, and you're having problems in-life right now, it may well be that such immersion plus in-character failure is, instead of allowing you to escape, causing the real-life frustrations to recursively pile back up. "Oh, I just felt this earlier today. At work. Yep: sucked then, too."

Nailed it.

First try!

More seriously, though, I've been there (though I didn't recognize it at the time). Uhf. I empathize and understand the feeling!

Weirdo wrote:

Thanks! I'm really glad my posts are appreciated, sometimes I feel like Ii'm just killing time on the boards. I don't need to post on your thread, though, when you're favouriting everything I post here. :)

Hey! You don't know my methods! They are a mysterious opaque window to my secrets!

... my very "I like things" secrets!

(Also, not exactly what I meant - I meant more for the conversation etc., but, uh, yeah, in retrospect, that's kind of... huh. I really didn't get that across at all. Oops!)

Your game stuff sounds AWESOME! :D

[Weirdo]

It is awesome, hence wanting to keep doing it!

Thanks for the insomnia thread link.

Tacticslion wrote:

Weirdo wrote:

I have a set of rainbow dice - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, all in the same style. I use them for rolling iterative attacks, natural attack sequences, or other multi-roll actions so that I can easily determine which die goes with which attack based on colour order.

SO COOL!

I KNOW RIGHT?

Tacticslion wrote:

Weirdo wrote:

Thanks! I'm really glad my posts are appreciated, sometimes I feel like Ii'm just killing time on the boards. I don't need to post on your thread, though, when you're favouriting everything I post here. :)

Hey! You don't know my methods! They are a mysterious opaque window to my secrets!

... my very "I like things" secrets!

(Also, not exactly what I meant - I meant more for the conversation etc., but, uh, yeah, in retrospect, that's kind of... huh. I really didn't get that across at all. Oops!)

Posts are conversations, aren't they? I'm certainly not trying to lecture (even if some of my posts are long enough >_>)

Liz Courts wrote:

Maybe also try in-character journals? That might help divest yourself of that mindspace post-game (and also provides a dandy method to keep track of what's going on in-game).

Good idea. We have a campaign wiki but journals are more fun.

[thegreenteagamer]

You'll get through this, man.

Determination can bring any human to any destination - it's just a matter of learning how and not quitting. Some people take longer than others, but we all have the ability within ourselves to reach our goals if we don't let up.

I don't know you, but given that you seem to be willing to work to achieve your goals (therapy can be work, I've been there - just admitting you're not where you want to be is tough) and seek out information on how to get there leads me to believe you can do this!

[MrCharisma]

Weirdo wrote:

Liz Courts wrote:

Maybe also try in-character journals? That might help divest yourself of that mindspace post-game (and also provides a dandy method to keep track of what's going on in-game).

Good idea. We have a campaign wiki but journals are more fun.

Also, then you can post your game journal online so we can all look on jealously =D

(Haha, don't feel pressured)

I also wanted to say, I joined the Paizo forums really recently - and thanks in big part to threads like this - I've found this to be a really friendly and welcoming community. So thank you Weirdo, and thank you to everyone else who's been contributing to this. You may have started this thread asking for help, but believe me it's helping other people as well.

[Ciaran Barnes]

Have you thought about GMing a game instead of playing? Or would that lead to the same result?

[Weirdo]

GMing is less emotionally involved, but the time and effort involved in running a game makes it challenging when I have other things going on. (The gestalt game my fiancee is running is partly intended to give me a break from running my own campaign.)

Definitely feeling better about figuring this out. Thanks everyone!