Nine-Year-Old Girl In Rehab After Playing Fortnite For So Long That She Wet Herself
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A nine-year-old girl has found herself in rehab after she became so addicted to playing Fortnite that she would wet herself rather than stop playing.
Her parents told The Daily Mirror that their daughter, who is still at primary school, would get up in the middle of the night to keep playing, would not go to the toilet, would fall asleep in class because she was so tired from staying up all night on the game and assaulted her father when he tried to take the game away from her.
"We had no idea, when we let her play the game, of the addictive nature or the impact it could have on her mental health," said the girl's mother.
"She is in therapy for the addiction after she became withdrawn, agitated and disturbed from playing up to ten hours a day - sometimes playing until dawn, wetting herself so she didn't have to leave the screen.
"This is a serious issue which is destroying our little girl's life and someone needs to step in to ban it before it becomes an epidemic.
"We got called in by her head teacher asking if everything was OK. She had fallen asleep twice in lessons and her grades were slipping.
"When we asked our daughter what the problem was, she became unusually argumentative and aggressive, which we just put down to her hormones."
The game has been one of the most popular in the world in the last year or so, with 40 million downloads. The initial game is free, but there are many in-game extras that can be purchased.
When her parents noticed several small payments, totalling over £50, from their credit cards, they suspected their child.
The mum said: "Our daughter told us it could be some extras she'd paid for on Fortnite. Of course we were furious and confiscated her Xbox. But then she lashed out and hit my husband in the face."
"My husband saw her light on in the night and found her sitting on a urine-soaked cushion playing the game.
"I found her backside was red-raw. She was so hooked to the game she wouldn't even go to the toilet."
When they questioned her, the girl broke down and told them everything. "Crying, she told us that every night for the past two months she had waited until we were asleep and then got up to play, sometimes until 5am," said her mother.
"We worked out that she could have been playing for up to ten hours a day, and we'd had no idea."
The girl is now undergoing psychotherapy to cure her from her addiction.
Featured Image Credit: Fortnite/PA
Topics: UK
