This might be massively off topic or it might not be but i’ve seen people post not so much car related articles here. But if someone spends untold money on sim racing and plays that all weekend do they have a disorder? NO. This is ridiculous, and it’s crazy how much the media and government try to bully nerds and enable their parents to continue doing it.
I am 34 and I got my first PC in 1989, my dad bought it for himself because his friend tried to get him into video games. He didn’t take to it but me and my brother did. Throughout my childhood my parents, even though they bought the games and all that, continuously personally attacked me for playing video games as entertainment. My dad even ripped me to his friends when I was in the room playing Jet Fighter 3, I was big into Flight Sims, and they were watching football basically calling me a loser because I was more into playing PC games then watching the Chicago Bears or Bulls.
I had to deal with this constantly as I lived with them and they blamed ALL my problems on the fact I was into not only PC gaming but also tabletop games. I didn’t get good grades in high school and they did no effort into trying to figure out why, just blamed games. They flat out banned me from gaming for a year and still I got Ds and Fs. No effort made at all to understand what was going on because gaming was the problem.
They forced me to be in marching band, in baseball, and doing all kinds of things I had literally no interest at all in. The one activity I did have interest in, go karting, and constantly begged them to get me into they refused. They never even brought me to a go kart track for cheap fun once. They always said it was too much money even though my band equipment cost much more and they easily could afford new cars, a boat, a massive bro den complete with wet bar, big screen, pool table, etc. I was also big into outdoor activities and non-traditional sports like skateboarding and it was ignored. I remember one birthday they bought me a baseball glove. Gee thanks. They were trying to get me to go to a prestigious school and made me take classes and do activities to do that. I had ZERO interest in this and i’m glad I didn’t. I would probably still be in debt with student loans if I did.
The thing is they had no idea what I was doing. I was making levels for Quake and Half-Life, making mods, reading code. This was my education, high school to me was pointless and I had no interest at all in it. The school I was in was a low quality Chicago area public school that was more of a prison or day care than education. Years later I got a Computer Science degree and was on the honor list and now I work for the DoD as a contractor and make 3 times as much money as both of them did combined. Around 25 I was totally liberated from these people and their shit and i’m glad. Now that i’ve been away our relationship has improved significantly, mostly because they can’t say anything. However they still talk shit about my brother.
My brother has other issues and of course they blame things on games for him as well. He basically was medically discharged from the navy for mental health reasons. He has an anxiety disorder and was diagnosed with bi polar disorder. My parents talk shit about him and blame video games for that as well all while my grandmother who was 85 when she died 10 years ago had all these same issues throughout her life. Issues like this plague my dad’s side of the family. It’s quite literally in our DNA. He also has a very addictive personality and it’s for EVERYTHING not just “games”. Yet that gets the blame.
I always hate when this shit comes out and the media trys to push this gaming nonsense. Dumb parents like mine who want to blame everyone but themselves for their child’s problems and never listen to their kids will emotionally abuse their children just because they don’t like what they do for entertainment for no reason. Meanwhile the parents are sitting on the couch all day getting fat and being lazy watching TV and they think that’s better. If you think your kid is not interested in anything and he’s some kind of nihilist listen to them, they are interested in things just maybe not what YOU are interested in and it’s not a “disorder”.
Sorry for the rant but when I see things like this it just really pisses me off and I guess you can say “triggers” me. I hear stories like this all the time and it needs to stop.