I'm probably telling you something you already know, but that really, really sounds like depression. I have experience of close family with depression and the way you describe his behaviour is very similar. Has he been seen by any kind mental health practitioner? I know the psychiatric services here in the UK are terribly stretched, but he and you sound like you need external help. Even if it takes a while for you to see a psychiatrist, your GP may be able to provide some help.
I hope you manage to find a way through this and are able to get some help. My kids are not teenagers yet, but this sort of thing is one of my big worries for the future.
But like, additions and anxiety treatment are not treated by enabling. When kids get to mental health hospital, they can not play games whole day. Instead, a system of rewards and punishments is created and they are forced to increasingly participate in life activities.
I do not want to criticize OP, because the mental health issues are hard and help is oftentimes next to impossible to get. For all "contact doctor", half of the time you get no help. Even hospitalization can be super hard to get unless the kid clearly suicidal.
But, the idea that taking away PlayStation or severly limiting it, that forcing the kid to push the boundaries is somehow cruel is just wrong.
I didn't say that and I'm not sure what the fallacy you just employed is called.
It's cruel and inhumane to forcibly remove someone's access to something they are personally and emotionally invested in. It's cruel and inhumane to force one's own view of a “good life” on someone who obviously disagrees.
The real challenge of parenting is to find ways to help your child without resorting to cruelty. Your fallacy is to assume that cruelty is necessary and that anyone who criticizes the cruelty must somehow be criticizing the desire to help.
Sometimes forcing a person out of their comfort zone is the best thing that can happen to them. In fact, nearly all good things that have happened in my life have required me to exit my comfort zone, which for a long time was playing games alone at home. Sometimes it has happened voluntarily, sometimes due to government (conscription) or social pressure (going to study in another city, because that's what you are supposed to do). In all cases, the outcome was good. My social skills improved, I got education, a job, wife, children, nice travel experiences.
> t's cruel and inhumane to forcibly remove someone's access to something they are personally and emotionally invested in.
Not always. And not in this case. It is not cruel and may be necessary.
> It's cruel and inhumane to force one's own view of a “good life” on someone who obviously disagrees.
Speaking about fallacies, this framing is clearly not what is going on in that situation. In either way, the kid is growing to be entirely unable to live without caregiver of a sort, so yes, it is duty of parents to intervene regardless of kids agreement.