Been lurking for a while and figured y’all might be able to help with an issue I’ve been mulling over for a bit now. It’s gonna sound a little strange and specific, but bear with me.

I’ve always had bad procrastination anxiety. I’ll always avoid doing things that give me the classic anxiety tummy knots. As a kid in school I managed to unknowingly hijack it by going into pressure mode when work was due, but now as an adult lacking strict deadlines with very real punishments, I’m having a bit of trouble.

My first issue is a little silly, but I’m really bad at finishing tv shows and videogames lately, which is incredibly annoying bc I really love these hobbies. I’m fully motivated to play / watch and start new things, but when I get close to the end I’ll start engaging less. I think this is bc my anxiety has realised that I get sad when I finish something, and therefore is like ‘well if we don't finish it we won't get sad problem solved’. However, I really want to finish things. I’m just not sure how to go about working through that.

The second issue is related to the first, as I can’t bring myself to continue a thing, but the reasoning is slightly different. I lost my father in June of last year and my brain latched on to the fact that while it happened in hospital, I was at home playing a specific game. Since then I haven’t been able to think of opening said game without the classic anxiety knots, so I just don’t. It’s getting frustrating now bc, again, I want to play more but my anxiety is making me avoid it.

I’ve had anxiety in general for around twenty years now, and I usually have it under fairly good control. I mean, I know full well nothing bad will happen to anyone else if I play that game, and that even if I feel sad after finishing a thing I can easily revisit it in the future. Alas, the anxious toddler in my brain is a little louder than common sense lately, so I’m open to any advice / suggestions anyone may have lmao.