you don't mind the need to act out in the shower or the need to watch p and to m?

why do the girls bother you more? will walking in your underwear in front of them be too embarrassing? is it the other people knowing that bothers you?

it is not clear why you want to stop.

b'hatzlachah

@Dov

First of all thank you for such a clear and detailed explanation, every word you write makes things clearer for me!

It is a particular liberating experience for me to be taught a thing or two about myself from someone other then myself. I am known as very good at psychology amongst my family and friends and yet you have read me like a book.

It has always been a big problem of mine that I think too much, I had thought that I was past that once married but it seems I was wrong. Indeed, everything you write has the ring of truth to it, especially not being able to wire my brain differently by myself. I believe now that this was my biggest mistake although I do not know where you saw exactly that in my words but then again you do have the experience!

Arrogance was a trait that I battled with as an adolescent, I had thought I had it covered. Now I see that even though I was able to hide my arrogance from myself and from others, I was too proud to admit I need EXTERNAL help!

I am starting my search therefore for a decent sex addict therapist who can help me out this ugly mess.

You:




So you correctly assume that even after starting a 12 step program, my brain would tell me that I can still handle it all myself without the them. So when you advise a therapist, would a main point of therapy be to accept defeat and surrender? The therapy is to get me to admit that I am powerless by myself (which I already do admit but perhaps you suspect I still do not really appreciate how powerless I truly am)? So the therapy isnt so much about curing myself as much as it also about admitting and really beleiveing I cant do it alone?

Have I understood you correctly?

Thanks so much for your helpful advice, I feel that you have me worked out!!!

@cordnoy

The girls I see every time I go in the shop, street, on a video! I catch a crush very easily and a girl can stay in my brain for a little while and it makes me slightly love sick. I cant have my wifes friend in the house without checking nout if her knee is uncovered.

That bothers me. Also the underwear problem can lead me into scandals that can ruin my name.

Thanks!

One more thing I will add about myself is that I catch crushes on girls very easily, not sexual ones but lovesick ones! Not sure it that piece of info is useful but I thought I would add it in!

endofmytether wrote:

Is that like catching a cold?

But seriously, it's not such a bad analogy. If a person knows that they are prone to asthma attacks, let's say, than they are extra careful about going out and hanging around crowds of people where germs congregate. If they do have to go to a crowded place, and they risk having a flare-up of their disease, they wear a mask.

So for us, if we know we are sensitive to the lust germ, then we stay away to the best of our ability. If we know we are going to a dangerous place, we need to take precautions that will act as our mask.

Do you have any "masks" you could use?

Dear endoftether,

I am gonna go out on a limb here, and this may seem to you a total non sequitur: Please forgive me if it's too 'forward' of me, but...

Have you considered using your real first name in your posts here as I and some others here do? Some may think this is a deviation or distraction from the discussion at hand - but I disagree. The reason I ask is that your realness in this discussion is in the balance. Not your honesty (which we take for granted), but your realness. Is your disarmingly candid openness here with us the way u r with everybody - or is it just because you are just a faceless (and even fake-named/nameless!) entity here on GYE? I have no clue. So I ask you.

So, for example, I know you wrote that she doesn't care about you being 'oversexed', but does she actually know that you do all these behaviors you wrote of here and that you are preoccupied with them to the extent that you are? Is the aware that it bothers you to the degree that you feel like actually posting here about them openly to others and even to consider seeing a therapist or working a 12 step program over them?

Now, please don't misunderstand - I am not suggesting either that you tell her a single thing or that you don't tell her. That's an entirely different issue and each person's case is different and I am not going there w you. Here and now I am purely asking a few questions to help you evaluate the degree of your actual facing of these issues. If you hide them in 'virtual land' (GYE) alone, it means something. As long as they are just discussed on a virtual chevra and with a fake name, they are usually not really real. (Evidence to that, is the extreme resistance this idea gets from people, for various reasons.) OK, enough of that mess.

Re your question about how to work with a therapist:

Just be wholly open and honest with him or her (there is no difference whether it is a man or lady) about every single detail of your habits and behavior - not just about the deep world (and it is deep!) of your yearnings and 'issues'. Let him or her figure out what your deep issues are. You tell the expert all the facts of your behaviors.

That is a thing we goofballs rarely do. We are too tempted by the opportunity to finally really be 'understood' by someone as the deep philosophical star-crossed tragic figures we all (I mean me, too) believe ourselves to be. May you let that go (surrender it) and really get the help most of us do not end up getting from our therapists - we rarely tell them all the simple facts of our behaviors and actions. Rarely.

Hatzlocha!!!!!

@Dov

I am not sure I understand what you mean about my realness, I am a very open person generally but even I have topics that I will only talk about as anonoynmous.

I haven't told a single soul about the extent that I am, people just think I am a very open guy. I am generally a very open guy but porn and girls fascination/obsession I have never told anyone. I have sometimes discussed masturbation with friends years ago but never as more then a passing problem.

My wife has no clue, she just thinks I am oversexed, as you so aptly put it. The reason why I am not coping now is because my cousin is staying by me. This led me to rock bottom mindset. However, on a normal daily basis I am very good at covering it up. My friends think I am crazy about girls but not that I would need to see a therapist.

GYE is the first place I have bared my soul. If you would know who I am and know me as well, you wouldn't believe it. I am considered extremely stable, would laugh off any connection with the "losers" from GYE and pretend I am way above them. Indeed, that is what I truly believed until recently. Only now do I realize that either I am a loser as well, or we are all winners with a problem.

Face to face, I wouldn't admit to you that you had read me correctly either because such a thing is against my personality. Only here with the anonymity of GYE have I suddenly found that I haven't been living honest, and that I can accept that someone else knows better then me. Strangely, this does not bother me but calms me down as if someone took a stone off my heart. No longer do I have to think I know all the answers, there are people who can help me out there. Very liberating!

About the therapist, you make me feel like even going there I might just miss it all, I hope he/she will be able to read me properly, I will definitely not hide anything, I am very open by nature. Speaking over these things to a woman disturbs me, if she is fit I might get attracted to her otherwise I just wouldn't feel comfortable talking about sex and stuff with an older understanding woman. Let me come back to the therapist topic later.

You tell me that since I am only open with virtual land (GYE), my issues are not real. I am not sure what you are trying to convey, that I have a lot less wrong with me then I think? That may be, but I suppose I need a therapist anyway. I would never dream of writing my true name, but my nickname is my true feeling, as in end of my tether

@tryingToShteig

thanks, I could not look but after a while that gets very hard! I could stay away from these places but if there is something wrong with me that needs therapy I would prefer to sort myself properly once and for all instead of just working on one thing at a time!

Dear chaver who goes by 'endofmytether',

You wrote you want to hear it like it is and can take it like a man....phew! This is a doozie and I hope you really are of a tough constitution!

First you say you are a very open guy - but you have huge secrets from everyone, even from your own wife.

That's open?

You repeat that you are really a very open person - but you would go so far as to play a role reversal in a second (and even use put-downs of GYE-types) as a cover if anyone suspected you were a pervert (as I am).

That's open?

Open about everything but what does not fit into the acceptable range of the listener so u r not ashamed of it with those people, is 'open'?

Maybe not so open...

I want to qualify that you have definitely taken a great step forward here. Possibly a huge step, in fact. But is it enough qualitatively?

'Baring one's soul' to a website full of virtual, frum, chronic porn users and masturbaters about his still basically completely secret porn and horniness problem...is that a 'coming out of the closet'? You say and feel that it is - and I believe you 100%! It's something. But I am saying is that it is not exactly a 'baring of the soul'. In your case I'd suggest that doing these things may be just more of the very same: opening up where it's comfy, while absolutely hiding the inconvenient parts of truth from the inconvenient crowd.

And your preconditions about exactly what kind of therapist you would actually be comfortable using seems like just more controlling and hesitation regarding who you will feel comfortable openly admitting this to, and who not.

So basically no real live human who sees you face to face is gonna hear you tell the unvarnished, full truth, it seems. Many of us who actually do see a shrink actually use our English names, or our middle names...anything but the real names we actually go by at home w/wife and close friends/family...it's just too real. Do you feel that temptation at all?

But you are not at the threshold of the therapists office yet - so you cannot answer that question, chaver.

I know, for I have been there. I used my English name for the first few visits with the shrink, before it became obvious to me that this was all part of the continuing effort to wear a mask - so I told her I go by 'Dov'. She just started calling me that. It was a subtle moment that made all the difference.

So many here use shrinks - but use a fake name with them! And they wonder why they do not see as much improvement, and wonder why....hmmm.

Maybe you are better than I was, but let me admit to you that when I started this recovery thing, I would not have known 'real' or 'honest' if I tripped over it and landed it it! I am still struggling with honesty and openness every day. You, on the other hand think you are 'generally' open - maybe you need to reconsider? You ask what I mean by 'realness' - maybe it is obvious?

So what am I suggesting?

Don't balk. Get real and open with somebody real who understands. And good shrink is a great place to start. Get a guy, fine, but do it. And do it right. That's what I am saying.

If you do go, then I pray you will not try to lead, interpret, and/or judge the therapy, but will instead take a giant step forward and leave the entire thing and it's interpretation in the hands of the expert. And it may be a shock, but that expert is not you. Simple idea: the primary qualification of a helper in this issue, is that it not be you. That will be a struggle.

When you start opening up to real people who see the real you, with your normal yarmulkah, tzitzis or not, however you really dress normally; meet your real wife; and talk with you a few sessions about normal stuff just to get to know you as you really are - that will be a giant, giant step forward into realness.

Hatzlocha!! You have a ton of support here, no matter what. Just leave all the fear by the door and go to it, amigo. Unless you want the same.

@Dov

First of all, thanks for always writing such a long piece. A twisted mind like mine needs to read a lot to be able to get deeper gists of things, thanks for the blunt and harsh pointers!

By the way, today was hell, my cousin and my wife went swimming today, and all I heard for about an hour was my cousin talking about swimsuits and being embarrassed etc. Then she told my wife to take her camera instead, obviously so I should not see the photos. I know that is the right thing, but I hit depression when this happens.

My whole world goes dark, and I go lovesick for the girl in her swimsuit that I haven't got access to (even to look). This is has been with me for 12 years now, every time the girls shut me out even if it is because of Halacha, my world goes dark and I feel weak and lonely. I read your post in the middle of that and didn't enjoy it!

It took me about an hour to break out of that but I think I'm back normal again. Reading your words again, when i said I was open I meant about my feelings, happy, sad, appreciate, hurt etc etc but you are right that in these things I am not open. A bit of that is because of bad repercussions that can happen if people were to find out such as, bad name for later Shidduchim, wife feeling betrayed etc etc. Baring my soul here was easy, I didnt feel like it was hard. The battle is yet to come, I do not feel like I overcame anything by opening up here.

Why are you so against role-reversal, dont we all play that game on things we dont want people to find out? Surely you dont expect people to open up about everything they do to everyone?

It would never have occurred to me to use any name but my own during therapy, if I go for therapy I understand that I cant hide anything. I understand your warning not to try and interpret the shrink sessions, that will be hard for me because I will have a lot of theories during them. But how to know if my shrink is good? I assume from your previous posts that it should be a shrink with sex therapy experience but I need to make sure I absolutely trust him/her. Its hard not to judge the said therapist when you aren't convinced that he knows what he is talking about.

By the way you scare me. At the moment I am considered confindent, witty, clever, normal, extremely balanced! If this is not really me and I learn who the real me is, maybe he wont have these qualities! It would mean giving up my successful personality! The thought bothers me though there isnt much I can do about it if I want to truly discover myself!

1) Have you or has anyone got any suggestions to make about a therapist in Israel who could help my particular situation?

2) How many sessions is average therapy (so I can get in idea money-wise what we are talking about)

I have one who is very smart, methodical and well recommended. Email me @ njrt9bmg@hotmail.com if you would like to know info.

b'hatzlachah on whatever you do

@cordnoy

good man, I have contacted you, please let me know in your reply!

Hatzlocho for you too!

No need to worry, just focus on opening up to the shrink simply and straightforwardly and you are doing the best you can. No, opening up to everybody in the universe is not helpful at all, but that's not the path anybody I know uses in recovery, even in 12 steps. We do learn to behave honestly and openly with everyone in a healthy way...that is, living without secrets or tricks at all. That is (I guarantee) a completely different basis for you and all of us. For you and us all, hiding and covering up 'what's really going on' is the very basis of living and functioning in society. Thats' gotta go.

And yes, learning to do that without irrelevant sharing and pulling your pants down in front of everyone and his uncle (perhaps not the very best figure of speech to use, sorry!) is a trick for us, indeed. But I can tell you this: living without faking and hiding is sooooorelaxing, energizing, and geshmak. My BP dropped 10 points in my first year os sobriety...it took me about a year to learn how I was hiding and how to quit it and live without the weight of shame.

Just keep moving, doing. You will be OK!

@Dov thanks,

Im now the process of looking for a therapist now who can help me, I hope I will be able to ride the journey safely!

Thanks for all of your help, its amazing to have seen people who were actually helped, it gives me reason to believe in myself too!

May Hashem repay you well!!

Now, to everyone else out there, I am still in the search for a good therapist. @Cordnoy has already suggested on to me and I might use that person! Does anyone else have any info they can offer?

You can email me: endofmytether10@gmail.com

While it is that you do whatever you do in terms of therapy etc.- the one thing that should accompany you in your journey, as well as all of us in our journey is the following:
we dont have any "problems". Anything that seems to bother us or hinder us etc. is only there for our benefit and for our good. When we reframe "problems" "challenges" etc. to what they truly are underneath and inherently, which is nothing but goodness from the one above and only there for us in the first place for our benefit - for otherwise, it wouldnt exist in the first place and we embrace it lovingly as a caress from above etc.- the process is one that we are not afraid of, as we know if its there to benefit us, theres no such thing as failure etc.(even when it seems to the contrary) and it fills us with love and contentedness and calm. He paced the so called challenge and problem - so he knew all that we would undergo in the process and that is PRECISELY the way he wanted it, without the minutest difference.