The smallest changes can tie to bigger ones in interesting ways, even more when the changed you want to make have been thought about for a long time.

In this case, it’s about a phone app.

I have a lot of media to sort through on my phone, but nothing compares to the space that apps and system data will use up. Not that they all aren’t important, but one needed to go so the WordPress app could take its place.

It was a gaming one, loaded with microtransactions that I’ll admit I gave in to, but the main thing lied in what type of control it had over me.

Sometimes it left me open for unrelated emotional triggers while playing. Even with knowing that, I’d still go into the game and enjoyed both the gaming aspect and somehow tolerated the false comfort within the anxiety.

Not even console games had/have me like this. And it has nothing to do with the game’s theme, either. It was an otherwise cute yet challenging puzzler for all ages, and I thought it would be anything but what it became to my MH.

As of this posting, it’s been a few weeks since I deleted it. When I wrote this though, it hasn’t been a week yet, but already I have little to no sign of going back. And I had that app for what may have been more than a year, if that.

I can’t help but think of why I remained so comforted in that thing. It’s not like I’m comfortable with the general emotional issues, and I don’t need any kind of game to remind me of them.

If there’s anything to take from the experience, it’s that there’s still arguably smaller things to chip off which I now see caused me to feel the way I did before starting my MH journey. Things that remind me of the warped idea of safer spaces, even while historically living in places that are anything but.

Given how long it took to get rid of this app in favor of a better one, the phrase “old habits die hard” applies very well.

But hey. At least this one’s dead.

D.F.