dovekbashem wrote:
Secondly, there has been a lot of talk about me opening up to someone and being honest about my situation. To be honest, I have never even opened up to anyone on this site with my real name and real information because I am too ashamed and too scared of coming face to face with the reality that this problem is really MINE. When I post under the disguise of "dovek" I can always hide my problems away in this computer with the guarantee that they will never follow the "real me" around in the real world. I really want to hear thoughts on this. Be honest, but be nice. This is a very scary process (much scarier and more stressful than I even would have imagined).
Thank you to the whole chevra for always being there. I've said this before - I really do feel honored to be "around" such incredible Jews.
Hmmm..."around," (quotation marks were yours) indeed. Well put, chaver.
Yep, it's
scary.
I want to share a story that happened to me and what I learned from it. It applies to your struggle for realness here, and I promise it is nice.
I was about 11 years old and with cousins at the dinner table, once. I swallowed a hard candy and - ploop! - it went right
down the wrong pipe! I could not breath
at all. Sat there a few seconds and realized
I was, in fact, choking. So what did I do? I got up...and nonchalantly went to the bathroom to try and see what I could do about this little 'possibly dying?' problem.
Hear what this means?
It was clear as day to me right then that, while choking was not 'nice' at all,
I must do it in private. It is just way too embarrassing to turn red, get desperate, and maybe even pass out -
IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!! So I opted for the private, quiet death (maybe) in the restroom. It is very embarrassing to be 'reduced' to a quivering, panicking person trying to scream for help in front of other people who are really not expecting it cuz they are talking about a vort or the potato salad being undercooked. (Hitchcock knew this part of human frailty well and used it...but that's probably a non-GYE-approved digression, sorry!)
Well, it is obvious that I did not die, cuz here I am on GYE and stuff. (Even ZemirosShabbos has figured
that out by now!
![](https://guardyoureyes.com/components/com_kunena/template/default/images/emoticons/new/grin.png)
) Eventually, I desperately coughed, spewed, and hit my chest against the wall or whatever, and it popped out. B"H! (By the way, there I was, standing in front of the very
same mirror in the very
same bathroom and the very same
spot that I was to masturbate in hundreds of times over the years to follow... hmmm, and He
still saved me! So it is obvious that Hashem loves masturbaters,
too. Bu-wah!)
Years later at a CPR class, I heard the instructor say that "If you are ever at a table and some one gets up without excusing themselves at all and just walks away, ask them if they are OK...if they do not answer you,
follow them. For they may be choking and mortified (pun intended) that they would be shamed in public with desperation of gasping for their lives in front of the dinner crowd." They also told us that many people who have had a gran mal seizure in public feel deeply embarrassed when they come to. None of us want to have the vulnerability of being at the mercy of our bodily functions in public - whatever those functions are.
I was amazed. I was sure that I was the only one who even would
think of escaping shame
about choking! I was wrong. But more on that, in a minute.
What really happens to the poor guy who is there chokin' in the boys' room when he realizes to his utter dismay that he has
failed at secretly disloging the thing from his throat and he
is actually about to pass out? He sees that if he does not grow up and get help, he will soon die on that floor. And he will be found there anyway! (Ooh, there really is no escape from the embarrassment, is there?!) So what does he do?
Certainly, this prideful/shameful, choking fellow is eventually overcome by his own fear of his very real real death. That fear actually becomes greater that his fear of embarrassment for a few precious seconds. He ends up crawling out of the bathroom, blue-faced and wild-eyed. He causes an uproar and some panic ensues, till someone tries the Heimlich thing on him. Is he gonna make it? One thing we all know is that his chances always
were better out there in the restaurant than alone in the bathroom!
Right?
Now to the porn and sex-with-self problem:
How many of us (including myself of course) hid in the bathroom till we couldn't take it any longer? It's so interesting that through high school and beyond I was always
so sure that I was the only guy with this problem. Certainly the only one with it
to this degree! The
worst guy in yeshivah, for sure. Yeah, right...
Later on, I learned about shame, but did not see that operating in me...
no, not me!
I tried to fix it with sforim, self-help books, rebbis and shrinks, then with getting married, then with sex demands from my poor wife, then with reading sex-addiction books and trying to do it on my own...all in the comfort of my own bathroom!
It got me screwed up enough to come out of my hiding and get real help, and my help sent me to SA.
Anyhow, over the years here and elsewhere I have met many good frum guys who are playing with fire, some even with considerable wreckage already, who just can't open up about it. They can't get real help, because they would rather keep choking alone in the bathroom. I understand them very well, cuz I have been there.
Each person has a different thing that is bigger than their shame and pride. Then we are ready to open up and get real help, for a change. How sad it is that many of us need to be choking so badly that we cannot walk out of the bathroom, but must crawl, blue-faced and with wreckage.
May Hashem help everyone else get out sooner!
- Dov