Baruch hashem I stopped being pogem about a year ago; I also dropped images and looking at women(that was a huge nisayon during the summer in my neighborhood), and baruch soymech noflim - hashem had mercy on me and has helped me stay clean without too much pain since, with two exceptions. I keep reliving my old life and fantasizing about it - at first, when I gave it up, I was so happy, dancing up and down; i felt clean and rid of the garbage, and I was able to view it as garbage. I laughed at what I used to do and felt sincere charatah. Now when I think about it I have a powerful urge to go back; I now feel that I was happier when I was involved in pornography and pgam habris r"l. I now keep thinking(not that I accept it, I just keep thinking it) that it's 'healthy' to be pogem, and that its being a fanatic, or up-tight, or a prude to not do it(chas veshalom). I feel so weak and unable to fight the dirty goyishe thoughts, which are usually accompanied with hirhurim of hat I used to look at, and the girl I used to be with when I was 15. I'm so scared of regretting the teshuvah I did; sometimes I think that I made a mistake when I gave it all up, that if I do it in 'moderation' it would be ok, and that I'm depressing myself - it gives me all kinds of sfeikos, and all I want is to snap out of it. I know it's just my negius, but the laitzonus and apikorsus comes so easily and it's so hard to get rid of it, it's mamesh gehinnom - the seforim say that gehinnom is being far from g-d, and thats exactly how I feel! I used to almost always be conscious of Hashem, and have real yiras shomayim, like hashem was right in front of me - i miss it so much, and now when I try to go back to that state, my yatzer hora tells me that the only reason I believe in it is to feel that way again, of being close to hashem, and I cant think of an answer to give to him - not that he needs one, but just the taynoh itself cuts me off and makes me susceptible to all sorts of tumah. I'm also afraid of becoming older(I'm 18), and realizing 'you wasted your youth on frumkeit and could have had all sorts of hanaos', even though I know that's not true; I just wish there were some way of connecting to my progress in yiddishkeit in a tangible way, like when one does a lot of studying, he gets a high grade, i have this unsatisfiable crave for some sort of indicator that I've accomplished something, or that ive earned something, but ruchnius seems so far away and vague to me when I think about it - does anyone have anything from seforim or anything else to help me get past this? is it just a delayed reaction to giving up the tumah?

Dear Holy Bochur,

When a father teaches his son to walk, he holds his hands and walks with him. As the the child gets more of the hang of it, the father starts to let go of the child and step back - holding out his arms that the child should walk to him. The child may ask; "why father are you letting me go just when I am doing so well? Answers the father; "because I want you to walk on your own my son".

You made an amazing and powerful Teshuvah, from the lowest to the highest. Hashem was holding your hand the whole time. Now he is stepping back a bit and hoping you will learn to walk even more.

The Yetzer Hara can only be fought "lima'lah min hada'as". He consistently asks questions like Pharaoh did: "Who is Hashem that I should listen to him?" The Yetzer Hara cannot be answered with logic. After all, look at the 10-20 different things you wrote in your original post over here. Instead, "Hakeh es Shinav" - knock out his teeth. Don't even get into an argument with him.

Lust is a poison. You have succeeded in ridding yourself of this poison. If you would feed it, you would want more and more and never be happy. Are the goyim happy? When lust strikes, or thoughts of past experiences come up, try to ascociate these memories with the pain and emptiness you felt AFTERWARDS. You see, the yetzer hara wants you only to remember the good, but blocks out the bad. It's human nature. This is how memory works. But if you would remember the feeling of emptiness and pain that you had when you were addicted to these things, you wouldn't even have a test. Memory works through association. Try and associate the old memories with the pain you felt.

Remember that we human beings come from a putrid drop and will one day rot in the ground. We will become old and sick in the process. Everywhere around us is sickness and suffering. Our pathetic 80 year existence has no meaning - UNLESS we rise above it all and choose to be a SOUL and not a BODY. You have done that. You are doing that. You should rejoice that of the billions of people on this planet whose lives are meaningless, rotting flesh, you have succeeded in bringing meaning and purpose and light to the world, and pleasure to G-d himself - the creator of all the worlds!!

Specifically when all is dark and you don't FEEL the greatness of what you are doing, when everything feels bland and you can't find joy, THOSE are the moments of true Lishma- true Messiras nefesh - and those are the moments that will make your Neshama soar!

Tzadik Be'emunaso Yichyeh.

I love you, dear holy Yid! Keep posting here and you'll be inspired, and we'll be inspired.

Just one question:

Could it be that right now you are experiencing any kind of difficulty in life? Are you going through any changes, direction, having to make decisions?
  Basically I am guessing that maybe, just maybe you are experiencing some sort of struggle in life, a little anxiety or whatever. As we all know, I think, that when we are down, we remember that "high" of the fulfillment of lust, to counter our low. If this is the case with you, it would be best to go straight to the shoresh. Fix whatever it is. Rid yourself of the anxiety, depression, feeling of lack of fulfillment in life. Do this instead of dealing with the Y'H. Don't treat the symptom, but rather go to the source.
  We all know that the Y'H is like a fly. He continues to search for the rotten part of the apple...looking for a way to get in. If you are experiencing any of the above, cut the rotten part out, and then the Y"H will go away. You will have no need for this tumahdika type of fulfillment, and adrenalin high.

Dear Bochur28,

I know exactly how you feel, since I felt the same way a year ago. At that time I used to ask yourself, I'm being faithful and obedient to God so why doesn't he give me a feeling of satisfaction and achievement and why don't I feel happy? Sometimes, I even thought, why is God making me struggle and, why do I have to suffer and BE HUMBLE and just trust in God with blind faith?

For me, this was the most difficult aspect of giving up masturbation and living a life of sexual purity. The fact that you don't always feel great, and that in spite of your efforts you don't know if you will ultimately meet with success.

However, looking back, I feel that that was God wanted to test in me- if I had REALLY resolved to give up my bad habits. Only when you are faced with uncertainty and adversity can you truly prove to yourself and to God that you have overcome the challenge you were faced with.

Bochur,

Your struggle makes perfect sense because you’re only half way there.  Although you’ve stopped acting in a negative way, in order to feel good about it you have to fill the void with something at least as stimulating and satisfying, otherwise the doubts and thoughts of “going back” will give you no rest.  The answer is deceptively simple and you already know it:  increasing kedusha and ruchniyus is the only way to fill the void.  You say
– this is what needs to change.  But how?  The Y”H has a big head start over ruchniyus – he starts his relentless sweet talking as soon as we’re born, and pursuing what he wants is instinctive and appeals to our basic and base physical nature.  Ruchniyus on the other hand, takes maturity and hard work.  If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be “earning” a reward for pursuing it, so in a purely intellectual way, this makes sense.  Amid the worldwide economic crisis today, it’s clearer in this day and age than at any time in recent memory:  if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  We can’t earn the eternal and unlimited return on an investment in ruchniyus without a lot of effort.  But since the benefits are not readily apparent, unlike the pleasures offered by the Y”H, how can you convince yourself of this in your heart, on an emotional level?

The first step there is self knowledge.  A Baal Teshuvah like you is already far ahead of a “FFB” in this regard because you’ve already made a conscious decision after weighing the different paths in your own mind to become frum.  I must confess that this process is beyond my understanding and experience and I truly admire people who do this.  As an FFB, I had the opposite problem – how to do the very same things I’d been doing my whole life…but for the right reasons this time.  So I’d first ask you to remind yourself (and please share if you’re willing) why you became frum in the first place?

The next step is to identify any and all causes for emotional pain.  As “me” asked, are you going through a difficult time right now?  Are there things that bother you on a routine basis that you can’t overcome?  When you acted out, what were the circumstances?  What precipitated the urge to indulge?  In the beginning it sounds like you got sucked in by the “open attitude” of your parents, but if you’re experiencing anxiety when trying to stop then it’s gone beyond that.  Acting out seems to have evolved into a soothing mechanism for some type of pain which is why it’s difficult to resist giving in.  No one wants to be in pain and we instinctively do anything we can to avoid it.  So try to identify the sources of emotional pain and examine them to see if a misperception or two may be behind that door.

Once you're aware of what gets you down, the stage is set, you're ready to move UP.  Find any part or aspect of Torah that excites you.  Whether it be Halacha, Hashkafa, Chumash, Nach, Mussar, etc., whether the best medium for you is a Shiur, a Chavrusah or meditation in the forest – it doesn’t matter.  The key is that it speaks to you, to your heart.

Let me know what you find!

Wow, Ahron, with wisdom like this - you should become a therapist yourself!  :D

What you write would make a good Chizuk e-mail one day...

I think aaron's words are so on the mark, it couldn't have been said better. The same is true about Rabinu Guards words. All I can add  is that it can be extremely helpful, to find -and connect yourself- to a rebbe or a tzibur for the purpose of growing in ruchnius. I don't know what area you live in, but even in this generation there are great tzadikim around. CHAZAK VE'EMATZ! and HATZLOCHOH RABOH!

I haven't been here for a while(been more serious in yeshiva, in a dorm, and I don't go online anymore when I'm there - when I'm home, I'm following the psak of reb shmuel vosner shlit"a and only going online when there's someone in my room with a very strict filter, baruch hashem! I feel very free of the shtusim online, besides this site of course) - Things seem a little better, but the hirhurim keep coming - I have won a few times though, baruch ahshem! Thank you very much for youir advice, I know deep down the real answer is torah and more torah, but I feel tired of hearing it - that's my own chisaron, and I know I need to tackle it. I think the alter said ity right - he didn't expect his talmidim not to sin because of yiras shomayim, but because they didnt have time to - this is the mahalach I need. I get too farkrumpt wwhen I sit there and philosophize, go into chakiros, being mefalpel this way and that way - this should be mutar because of this and this severah, and it can't be that big of an averah, or it's a machlokes if it's a derabonon or deoraysoh, etc.., all aitzos from the soton obviously, and all 'fallen torah' that i created - making chidushim for the sake of satisfying my desires is so evil, I can't believe I do it sometimes.

I need to get more klorkeit, but things seem to be looking up - thanks again boith of you for your helpful replies, I really appreciate it.

Dear Bochur28, first of all, I don't know if anyone knows who you are, so I want to introduce you to all the new guys on the forum.

Chevra, this "Bochur" could be one of the 36 hidden Tzadikim (sorry for blowing your cover ). See his story over here. When I read it, I was BLOWN AWAY. We're talking here about a very strong Koach of Kedusha in the world.

Ok, so with that introduction out of the way, let me address your question.

The answer is not just "Torah and more Torah". Did you ever hear anyone on this forum say that? You see, our minds were damaged by our past aveiros. "Physical damage", not only spiritual. And therefore, we need to take the "medication" that works. We aren't on the level today to take out of the Torah what previous generations were able to. We need practical eitzos of how to deal with these things in ways that are tried and proven.

For bad thoughts, please see this page - from the top to the bottom, for many great tips on what to do when fantasies strike.

And we also strongly encourage you to take the time out to read the new Handbooks that we recently launched. No matter what level of addiction you may have (and yours is not bad at all, compared to most guys here) you will learn A LOT from both of the new handbooks. Please see this page for links to the handbooks.

It's good to hear from you. Keep coming back!