dovekbashem wrote on 11 Jul 2012 06:37:
People on the forum keep talking about making this change "real" by discussing it with someone else in my life. I find this extremely hard to do. I don't know of anyone in my life who wouldn't be extremely shocked and disappointed by this dark secret of mine. I almost see it as my responsibility to maintain my image as someone who does yiddishkeit the way it should be done. How much might it hurt them to see that I am nichshol and that I am as lost and weak as I truly am?
I also find it difficult to come to terms with the idea of finding someone else on the forum to speak with over the phone. I can certainly understand why this would be valuable, but I have this incredible fear that my identity will get out and then someone - a real person! - will know what I have to hide.
I'm hoping this amazing chevra will respond with thoughts and insight. I do think I need support in this struggle, but I just don't know where to turn...
1- Easy solution -
forget about someone on the forum. The post by Eye.Nonymous is right. You are smart! Play it safe! After all, really, how many people on this forum are serious -
really serious and not just full of talk? I don't know, you don't know, Guard doesn't know...
anyone can come here and post anything they want and it can be all lies from top to bottom - cuz it's all done while hiding behind an username, a computer, and all just virtual.
So turn to a real recovering sex and lust addict. The ones that bring their faces and bodies into a room with other real recovering sex addicts cuz they are desperate to get better. They at least have a good chance of
really being for real. Call any SA member with a year or two of sobriety - frum or not frum, Jew or gentile. What do you want tomorrow - only
kedusha? Or will you settle - just for tomorrow - to just have
sobriety? If it
must be kedusha or you are not interested
even for one day, then I pity you. But I doubt you really feel that way yourself - so make the call if you want this, brother.
If you want, you can call the SA helpline they have an 800 number somewhere. But they will assume you are looking for a meeting. That you are really an addict...and maybe you do not believe that you are one! Yiu may not be one. I don't know - only your acceptance matters, not my opinion or that of anyone else, either. You can call me, or
any other SA guy with some sobriety. We are still messed up - but are definitely getting better and better. And we are sober with G-d's help. And we all have a 12th step and will share what we have with you.
And by the way, I do
not believe that SA is the
only answer. I am just suggesting it as a possibility because of my experience. I am no expert.
2- I know the shame you describe
so well. Though you mean it all me'umka deliba and are clearly a sincere Jew who wants desperately to be rid of this problem, your shame is disguised in this frum image thing, but just shame and nothing more. Even though the solution to this problem is clearly Hashem's Will, you are still so right: it is not to speak about from the bimah! A mechanech who masturbates (and I know some who do) should not admit that to his talmidim...that is just not the way to do it for some will not understand and may be hurt. But he definitely
will wreak destruction (as some have) to both his family and his talmidim if he does not admit it to another sick person in recovery - or at least to a shrink. (The shrink
may send him to a 12-step fellowship as mine did 15.5 years ago!)
I am a frum man in a Jewish community where most people know most (not all) people. I go to SA meetings with other frum sexaholics in recovery and there is a new frummy sheepishly joining us every few months. And most of us knew each other's full names, families, addresses, etc.
So? My children have not had shidduch problems yet. I have not had a bad name yet. I am as active in community stuff as I want to be with no fear.
I have no fear at all because I know -
know, mind you - that if I would not be opening up and attending SA meetings and opening up in meetings about my sexual acting out history clearly and without reservation, then I would be in far worse trouble! For I would be doing worse than risking my name: I would be acting out my lust like a beheimah. I know guys who have been sitting at a computer masturbating themselves - and had the pain and churban of their 12 year old daughter walk in on them and staring in disbelief. I know guys who have been arrested for less than I have done. I know guys who have woken up at 60 years of age to try and salvage whats left of their lives after wasting all the years till then in "religious struggle"...the yetzer hora is not worth a wasted Jewish life - or
any wasted life. So I hang around GYE and remind people that they can forget the 'yetzer hora', stop blaming the devil, Hashem, their wives, or whoever we are blaming for our fantasy obsessions and "falling" -
and get sober! A life is certainly a terrible thing to waste. It's not about sperm - it's about your life.
Hashem clearly cares less about you wasting your zera than He does about you wasting away your life. But we care about 'our image', 'reputation', or even better, about not making a 'chilul Hashem'.
Gevalt. The chilul Hashem is in a frum yid
doing this stuff -
not in
admitting it to safe people
so that he can get clean! It is such twisted logic, this chilul Hashem thing...but we have so much shame, shame, shame.
Funny thing: In our early years when my wife would be going to the car to get to the mikvah, she'd get alll upset at me if I'd open the door to say "Bye dear." She'd blanch and be so angry at me for embarassing her in front of the entire neighborhood - someone could have been watching and would have figured out that she must be going to the mikvah now....needless to say, I could not understand this. Now, after more than a few years married, she occasionally goes out to the car on mikvah night and calls out to me to, "Remember to put the frozen shnitzel out! Bye dear!!"
...what happenned?
Shame. It was shame. She grew up, that's all. We both did. I stopped doing things without thinking if they'd embarass her - even though they made no sense to me. And she stopped imagining that everybody esle whas thinking her thoughts and could read her mind. People - even frum Jews -
generally do mind their own lives.
Enough out of me, sorry about the arichus and sorry if c"v you were upset by anything I wrote. But it's good medicine for me so I share it with you, that's all.
Anything helpful to you in this?
