I Was the Person Who Couldn't Be Reasoned With

The Obsession Years

Let me tell you what identity collapse actually looked like.

I couldn't sleep at night. Not because of insomnia, but because my mind was already logged in. Running through character builds. Strategizing raid compositions. Planning which quests I'd tackle the next day. Calculating how many more herbs I needed to craft potions. My brain was playing the game even when my hands weren't on the keyboard.

Going out in real life felt like a waste of time I could spend leveling. Social events were interruptions. Talking to people who didn't play felt pointless. What were we supposed to discuss? Their jobs? Their relationships? Their real-world problems? None of that mattered compared to whether we could down the next boss.

The game changed over the years. When one title lost its hold, I'd find another. Different mechanics, different worlds, same obsession. It was never really about the specific game. It was about having something that gave me structure, achievement, belonging. Something I could be the best at.

I maintained my jobs. Got promotions, even. From the outside, I looked functional. But some part of me knew this wasn't serving me anymore. That it was holding me back from something I couldn't name. That the person I was becoming inside the game was preventing me from becoming anyone in real life.

The Intervention That Didn't Work

When I was younger, my parents tried to stop me.

First, they took away the game disks. They didn't realize that by then, I didn't need physical media anymore. Everything was digital. I was back in the game the same night.

When they figured that out, they started monitoring what I was doing. So I got creative. I changed the World of Warcraft icon to look like a folder. Found some other app I never used and gave it the WoW icon instead. Then I "deleted" World of Warcraft in front of them. Except I was deleting the decoy.

They thought they'd won. I went right back to playing.

You can't intervention someone out of an identity. They'll just get more creative about hiding it.

Here's the thing: they weren't wrong. They saw the problem clearly. Every argument they made was valid. The obsession WAS unhealthy. It WAS preventing me from developing other parts of my life. It WAS a form of avoidance.

But none of that mattered. Because they weren't arguing against a hobby. They were arguing against my identity. And you can't logic someone out of their identity.

When I was younger, there were external controls. Take away my computer. Cut off the internet. Those didn't work long-term, but they at least existed as options.

With political identity collapse, there's no equivalent. You can't take away someone's phone. You can't cut off their access to information. The 'game' is everywhere: TV, social media, conversations, newspapers. And unlike gaming, political engagement is seen as virtuous, not problematic.

There's no computer to take away. No disks to hide. No physical barrier to enforce.

The only thing that could interrupt it is something that demands their immediate attention: serious illness, major life crisis, something that forces them to focus on tangible, immediate problems rather than ideological ones.

And even then, they often just integrate it into the identity. Every life event becomes evidence for their worldview. Every problem gets filtered through their political lens.

Sometimes people will vote for policies that actively harm their own livelihood and still not waver. The cognitive dissonance gets resolved not by changing the belief, but by finding new explanations. It wasn't the policy that hurt them, it was some other factor. Or the harm is worth it for the cause. Or it's temporary pain for long-term gain.

The only time change occasionally happens is when the harm becomes undeniable and personal. Not abstract harm to others or direct harm to them or someone they love. And even then, it's not guaranteed.

This is why it's more intractable than addiction to games or substances. There's no external intervention point. It has to come from inside.

What Actually Happened When I Stopped

I'd long since quit World of Warcraft, but there were plenty of other games after. When I became a parent, I had to stop gaming entirely. I couldn't maintain the hyperfocus and also show up for a tiny human who needed me.

But here's the thing: I didn't have an identity crisis. Not then.

I just found new things to throw myself into. My career. Being a mom. Fitness and calorie counting. I looked functional. I got promotions. I was handling everything.

For years, I thought I'd done the work. I'd stopped the unhealthy obsession, found healthier outlets, moved on with my life.

I was wrong.

I hadn't addressed the underlying pattern. I'd just gotten better at choosing socially acceptable things to collapse my identity into.

When the Crisis Actually Came

The real identity crisis didn't hit until last year.

In 2024, everything came apart at once. My mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer in June. We had to put our dog to sleep after over ten years together. My grandfather got sick and eventually died in October. And somewhere in the middle of all this, I was grappling with a growing sense that maybe my 16-year career in software engineering had lost all meaning.

Each challenge individually would have been manageable. But their convergence created something I couldn't just push through or compartmentalize or solve my way out of.

I tried my usual approach: manage everyone else's needs, keep working, stay functional. For months, I convinced myself I was handling everything because I wasn't visibly falling apart.

Then I couldn't tell anymore whether work felt meaningless because of everything else happening, or because I genuinely needed a different path. That uncertainty was more exhausting than any individual crisis.

The breaking point came when a coworker opened up about his mental health struggles. His vulnerability gave me permission to seek therapy for the first time in my life.

That's when I learned I had ADHD. That's when I started actually processing instead of just surviving. That's when I started boxing as a way to work through everything I was feeling. That's when I had to face the questions I'd been avoiding for years:

Who am I without external structure telling me who to be? What do I actually value? What matters to me beyond achievement and competence? What do I want to create with my life?

Those are the questions gaming helped me avoid. And fitness (before the crisis). And career advancement. And even parenthood, to some extent.

All of those things were good. All of them were better than gaming. But I was still using them the same way: as answers to questions I wasn't ready to ask myself.

Recognizing the Pattern Everywhere

Now I'm finishing the first semester of a master's program in clinical mental health counseling, learning about identity formation, anxiety, defense mechanisms, and meaning-making. And I'm seeing this pattern everywhere.

A lot of us are preparing to go home for the holidays. To sit across from family members whose whole personality has become their politics. Who can't have dinner without turning it into a debate. Who can't watch TV without commentary. Who can't exist in the same room without making everything ideological.

And we keep trying to reason with them. Presenting facts. Sharing articles. Having rational discussions. Getting frustrated when nothing changes.

I'm here to tell you why it doesn't work: You're not up against logic. You're up against identity.

What Grad School Is Teaching Me

Rollo May, an existential psychologist, said that anxiety is like the world knocking at your door, telling you that you need to create something, make something, DO something.

That knocking is terrifying. It's the existential weight of freedom. The burden of having to create your own meaning in a world that doesn't hand it to you. The vertigo of realizing you have to figure out who you are and what matters to you.

For me, gaming answered that knock.

Clear objectives told me what mattered. Progress bars told me I was succeeding. A guild told me I belonged. Bosses to defeat gave me purpose. Loot to earn gave me rewards. Ranks to climb gave me a path forward.

I never had to sit with the harder questions: What do I actually value? Who do I want to become? What do I want to create with my life?

The game answered all of it for me.

The Political Parallel

For others, politics does the same thing.

Clear enemies tell you who to oppose. Righteous causes tell you what matters. A movement tells you where you belong. Injustices to fight give you purpose. Arguments to "win" give you competence. A tribe that agrees with you gives you community.

And crucially: a reality that no one else can see gives you special knowledge. You're not confused or lost. You're enlightened. You're awake. You're one of the few who really understands what's happening.

It fills real voids:

• Community without the vulnerability of deep relationships

• Competence without the risk of trying and failing at something new

• Purpose without having to choose it yourself

• Identity without the painful work of becoming

Once you have all that, of course you can't let it go. Because letting it go means facing everything you've been avoiding.

Why Facts Don't Work

When you challenge someone's political beliefs, you think you're challenging their ideas. You're not. You're challenging the entire structure holding them together.

You're saying: Your community is wrong. Your competence is misplaced. Your purpose is misguided. Your identity is built on lies.

Even if you're right, even if you have all the evidence in the world, they can't hear you. Because hearing you would mean dismantling everything.

This is why the backfire effect exists. Why presenting facts often makes people MORE entrenched in their beliefs. You're not dealing with a rational disagreement. You're dealing with an identity under threat.

The psychological defenses that kick in aren't about protecting their ideas. They're about protecting their sense of self.

The Research Backs This Up

Studies on persuasion consistently show that facts rarely change minds when identity is involved. People don't evaluate information objectively and then form opinions. They form identities first, then accept information that confirms those identities and reject information that threatens them.

Brendan Nyhan's research on the backfire effect found that correcting misinformation can actually strengthen false beliefs when those beliefs are tied to someone's identity or worldview. The correction isn't processed as "here's accurate information." It's processed as "here's an attack on who I am."

Dan Kahan's work on motivated reasoning shows that people's ability to evaluate information gets WORSE, not better, when they're more educated and analytical, if that information threatens their identity. Smart people are just better at defending what they already believe.

This isn't about intelligence. It's about identity protection.

What Actually Has to Happen for Change

I've been asking myself: what would have made teenage me stop gaming?

The answer is: nothing that anyone could have done from the outside.

I had to:

1. Hit a wall where the obsession became literally unsustainable (parenthood)

2. Experience the identity crisis of losing the thing

3. Sit with the uncomfortable questions about who I was without it

4. Slowly build a new sense of self based on something more authentic

5. Find new sources of community, competence, and purpose

All of that had to come from inside me. No one could force it. No intervention could shortcut it. The only thing external pressure did was make me more defensive and more creative about hiding what I was doing.

The same is true for people whose identity has collapsed into politics. They'll change when:

• Something internal shifts and they're ready to face what they've been avoiding

• The cost of maintaining the identity becomes too high

• They find something else that meets the same needs

• They're willing to sit with the existential anxiety they've been using politics to escape

Or they won't change at all. That's an option too.

The Holiday Reality

This brings us to the actual problem: what do you do when you have to sit across from these people at Christmas dinner?

The holidays force us into proximity with people we might not choose to spend time with otherwise. People whose identities have collapsed into something we find difficult, exhausting, or actively harmful.

There's obligation. There's history. There's love mixed with exhaustion. It's complicated in ways that "just don't go" doesn't capture.

Maybe it's your parents who've fallen down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Maybe it's your uncle who can't stop talking about whatever political outrage happened that week. Maybe it's your sibling who's become so ideologically rigid that you can't have a normal conversation anymore.

You love them. You also need breaks from them. Both things can be true.

What I'm Learning About Anger and Understanding

One of the hardest parts of recognizing this pattern is holding two truths at once: understanding why people do this AND feeling exhausted by it.

When you see someone's identity collapse into something difficult, you can intellectually understand the psychological mechanism while still being frustrated, hurt, or angry about the impact on your relationship.

I was the person who couldn't be reasoned with. I was the one who outsmarted every intervention. I was the one who made my obsession my identity because I didn't know how else to be. I was the exhausting person who couldn't talk about anything else.

Now I'm on the other side of it, watching others do the same thing with different content.

Understanding this doesn't make it easier. It doesn't fix strained relationships. It doesn't mean you have to stay in situations that harm you.

But it helps me hold something I couldn't hold before: compassion and boundaries at the same time.

I can understand why people do this (filling voids, avoiding existential anxiety, finding meaning and community) AND protect myself from the impact. I can recognize the psychological pattern AND decide I don't have the energy to deal with it.

Both things can be true.

When Understanding Isn't Enough

Here's where it gets complicated: my gaming obsession did harm the people around me, even if I couldn't see it at the time.

I was physically present but emotionally absent. I didn't want to be at family gatherings. I was irritable when pulled away from the game. The people who loved me felt secondary to a screen. That harm was real.

I see that same quality now in people whose politics have consumed them. Physically at the table, emotionally somewhere else. Present in body, absent in connection. I recognize it because I lived it.

But the harm I caused stopped at that emotional absence. I wasn't advocating for policies that would strip people of their rights. I wasn't spreading conspiracy theories that endanger vulnerable communities. I wasn't dehumanizing marginalized groups. I wasn't defending discrimination as religious freedom. I wasn't denying medical science in ways that could cost lives.

When someone's political identity does those things, that's a different level of harm. It's not just about uncomfortable family dinners anymore. It's about beliefs that actively hurt and stigmatize people.

Understanding the psychological pattern doesn't mean you have to tolerate it. Compassion for why they're doing it doesn't require you to accept what they're doing.

You can understand that they're filling real voids, avoiding real anxiety, finding real community and purpose. AND you can decide that the content of their beliefs crosses lines you can't ignore.

Sometimes compassion looks like boundaries. Sometimes it means leaving the table. Sometimes it means not going home for the holidays at all.

What You Can Actually Control

You can't change their mind. You really can't. No combination of facts, arguments, or emotional appeals is going to make someone give up their identity.

But you can:

Stop wasting energy on futile arguments. Every "discussion" that turns into a debate is energy you're spending on something that won't work. You're not going to convince them. They're not going to convince you. You're just both going to end up more frustrated and entrenched.

Recognize the pattern for what it is. This isn't about politics. It's about identity collapse. They're not choosing to be difficult. They're protecting the structure that's holding them together. That doesn't make it easier, but it might make you less personally hurt by it.

Set boundaries without guilt. "I'm not discussing politics today" is a complete sentence. "I need to take a break" is valid. "I'm leaving now" doesn't require justification. You don't owe anyone your presence at the expense of your peace.

Grieve what you've lost. The person you're dealing with might not be the person you remember. The relationship you had might not exist anymore. That's worth grieving. You don't have to pretend it's fine.

Find community with others in the same situation. You're not alone in this. There are lots of people navigating difficult family dynamics around political identity. Finding others who get it can help you feel less isolated.

Take care of yourself. Time limits on visits. Exit strategies. Separate hotel rooms. Whatever you need to protect your mental health is fair game.

The Larger Context: Why This Is Happening Now

It's not a coincidence that so many people are experiencing identity collapse right now. We're living through several simultaneous crises that make this pattern more likely.

The loneliness epidemic is real. Traditional forms of community (churches, civic organizations, neighborhood connections) have been declining for decades. People are more isolated than ever. When you're desperately lonely, anything that offers instant community becomes attractive.

Work doesn't provide meaning anymore. Late-stage capitalism has stripped work of any pretense of purpose beyond profit. When your job is just a paycheck and your labor feels meaningless, you need to find meaning somewhere else.

Social media amplifies everything. Algorithms reward engagement, and nothing drives engagement like outrage. Platforms are literally designed to push people toward more extreme versions of their beliefs. The radicalization pipeline is real and it's optimized for profit.

The world feels chaotic and scary. Climate change, political instability, economic uncertainty, pandemic trauma. When everything feels out of control, people grab onto anything that makes them feel like they understand what's happening and can do something about it.

We've lost shared reality. Information fragmentation means people can live in entirely different fact-worlds. When you and your family member are consuming completely different media ecosystems, you're not just disagreeing about interpretations. You're disagreeing about what's real.

All of this creates the perfect conditions for identity collapse. People are lonely, scared, and searching for meaning in a world that feels increasingly incomprehensible. Of course they're grabbing onto anything that offers clear answers, strong community, and a sense of purpose.

What Tech Culture Does Too

I'd be lying if I said I've fully escaped the pattern.

I've watched myself make engineering my entire identity. Unable to have conversations that don't somehow loop back to technical topics. Defining my worth by my job title and compensation. Finding community primarily through work. Measuring my competence by promotions and performance reviews.

Now I'm adding "grad student" to that identity mix. Already catching myself making the program my whole personality. Leading with it in conversations. Organizing my entire life around it. Finding my sense of purpose in the path toward becoming a therapist.

The pattern is seductive because it works. Having a clear identity feels better than the ambiguity of becoming. Having measurable progress feels better than the uncertainty of growth. Having a tribe feels better than the vulnerability of real connection.

The real question isn't "why are they like this?"

It's "what am I using to avoid becoming myself?"

Navigating the Holidays

I don't have this figured out. I'm still working through how to hold compassion and self-protection at the same time. I'm still learning what boundaries look like in relationships where love and exhaustion coexist.

But here's what I'm taking into difficult situations:

I can't change anyone's mind. That was never going to work anyway. The intervention didn't work when people tried it on me. It's not going to work when I try it on others.

I can understand the pattern without tolerating harm. Compassion for why someone's doing something doesn't mean accepting what they're saying.

I can set boundaries and leave early. I can love people and protect myself from them. I can grieve relationships that aren't what they used to be while not forcing myself to suffer through what they've become.

And maybe, if I'm really honest, recognizing the pattern in others helps me stay vigilant about my own tendencies toward identity collapse. Because the person most at risk of doing what they're doing is someone like me. Someone who's already done it once with gaming. Someone who's prone to hyperfocus and obsession. Someone who finds clear structure and measurable progress more comfortable than ambiguity and becoming.

I check in with myself now and ask: who am I? The answer is multidimensional. I'm a mom, a wife, an engineer, a future therapist. Someone who boxes for physical and mental health. A good person who wants to empower others. Someone who loves to laugh and make others laugh. A creator, a friend, a daughter. Someone with ADHD who's still figuring it out. Someone who wants to leave the world a little better.

I'm so proud of what I've become.

The work is holding all of those pieces without collapsing into any single one. Figuring out who I am without external structure telling me who to be.

That's the work others are avoiding too.

The difference is, I'm trying to do it. Some people aren't ready yet. Maybe they never will be.

For Everyone Dreading the Holidays

If you're reading this because you're already stressed about going home, here's what I want you to know:

You're not failing because you can't change their mind. Understanding why they're like this doesn't mean you have to tolerate it.

Set your boundaries. Leave early if you need to. Protect your peace. And maybe, ask yourself: who am I when I'm not trying to fix everyone else?